ESSAYS 

ON 

ECCLESIASTICAL SUBJECTS. 



1^' 



CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS 



€g(0atgi on Ccclejsiajstical ^ub/ectsf 



BY 



/ 



ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. 

DEAN OF WESTMINSTER 

AUTHOR OF "history OF THE JEWISH CHURCH," " SINAI AND PALESTINE, 
ETC., ETC. 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1881 



[Published by arrangement with the Author.] 






r/ie Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Stereotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton and Company. 



PREFACE. 



This volume, though not pretending to completeness, 
forms a connected whole. The Essays touch on a va- 
riety of topics, and were written at long intervals of 
time, but they are united by the common bond which 
connects the institutions to which they relate. It may 
be well to state here some of the general conclusions 
which they suggest. 

1. Underneath the sentiments and usages which have 
accumulated round the forms of Christianity, it is be- 
lieved that there is a class of principles — a Religion as 
it were behind the religion — which, however dimly ex- 
pressed, has given them whatever vitality they possess. 
It is not intended to assert that these principles were 
continuously present to the minds of the early Christians, 
or that they were not combined with much heterogeneous 
matter which interfered with their development. But it 
is maintained that there is enough in them of valuable 
truth to give to these ancient institutions a use in times 
and circumstances most different from those in which 
they originated. If this be shown to be the case, the 
main purpose of these Essays will have been accom- 
plished. The Sacraments — the Clergy — the Pope — 
the Creed — will take a long time in dying, if die they 
must. It is not useless to indicate a rational point of 
view, from which they may be approached, and to show 
the germs which, without a violent dislocation, may be 
developed into higher truth. 



VI PREFACE. 

2. The entire unlikeness of the early days of Chris- 
tianity (or, if we prefer so to put it, of the times of the 
Eoman Empire) to our own is a point which such a study 
will bring out. It has been truly said to be a great mis- 
fortune in one who treats of theological subjects to have 
the power of seeing likenesses without the power of see- 
ing differences. In practical matters the power of seeing 
likenesses is certainly a rare and valuable gift. The di- 
vergencies and disputes of theologians or theological par- 
ties have been in great measure occasioned by the want 
of it. But in historical matters the power of seeing dif- 
ferences cannot be too highly prized. The tendency of 
ordinary men is to invest every age with the attributes 
of their own time. This is specially the case in religious 
history. The Puritan idea that there was a Biblical 
counterpart to every — the most trivial — incident or in- 
stitution of modern ecclesiastical life, and that all ecclesi- 
astical statesmanship consisted in reducing the varieties 
of civilization to the crudity of the times when Chris- 
tianity was as yet in its infancy, has met with an unspar- 
ing criticism from the hand of Hooker. The same fancy 
has been exhibited on a larger scale by the endeavor of 
Roman Catholic and High Church divines to discover 
their own theories of the Papacy, the Hierarchy, the 
administration of the Sacraments, in the early Church. 
Such a passion for going back to an imaginary past, or 
transferring to the past the peculiarities of later times, 
may be best corrected by keeping in view the total un- 
likeness of the first, second, or third centuries to any- 
thing which now exists in any part of the world. 

3. This reluctance to look the facts of history in the 
face has favored the growth of a vast superstructure of 
fable. It used to be said in the early days of the revival 
of mystical and ecclesiastical Christianity at Oxford that 
it was impossible to conceive that the mediseval system 



PREFACE. Vll 

could ever have been developed out of a state of things 
quite dissimilar. " That is the fundamental fallacy of 
the ecclesiastical theory," it was remarked in answer by 
a distinguished statesman. " It is forgotten how very 
soon, out of a state of things entirely opposite, may be 
born a rehgious system which claims to be the genuine 
successor. Witness the growth of ' the Catholic and 
Apostolic Chnrch,' with its hierarchy and liturgy, out of 
the bald Presbyterianism and excited utterances of Ed- 
ward Irving and his companions." A like example might 
be pointed out in the formation of the Society of Friends, 
as founded by William Penn and his associates, with 
the sober self-control which has ever since characterized 
them, out of the enthusiastic, strange, indecorous acts of 
George Fox. Another might be found in the succession 
which, though with some exaggeration, has been traced, 
of the Oxford movement to the Wesleyan or so-called 
Evangelical movement of the last generation. 

Such a transformation may have occurred with regard 
to Christianity. If its earlier forms were quite unlike to 
those which have sprung out of them, it may be instruc- 
tive to see in various instances the process by which the 
change took place. It does not follow that the earlier 
form was more correct than the later ; but it is necessary 
to a candid view of the subject to know that it existed. 

4. Another point which is disclosed in any attempt to 
go below the surface of ecclesiastical history is the strong 
contrast between the under-current of popular feeling 
and the manifestations of opinion in the published litera- 
ture of the time. Especially is this brought to light in 
the representations of the Roman catacombs — hardly to 
be recognized in any work of any Christian writer of the 
time, and yet unquestionably familiar to the Christians 
of that age. Forms often retain an impress of the opin- 
ions of -which they were the vehicles, long after the opin- 
ions themselves have perished. 



Vlll PREFACE. 

5. There is an advantage in perceiving clearly the 
close community of origin which unites secular and sa- 
cred usages. It is evident that the greater part of the 
early Christian institutions sprang from social customs 
which prevailed at the time. It is satisfactory to see 
that this community of thought, which it has been the 
constant effort of later times to tear asunder, was not 
unknown to the primitive epoch. It has been the tend- 
ency of the lower and more vulgar forms of religious life 
to separate the secular and the sacred. It will always be 
the tendency of the loftier forms of religious thought to 
bring them together. Such a union is, to a certain ex- 
tent, exhibited in these early centuries. 

6. It has been attempted to find on all these points a 
better and not the darker side of these institutions. This 
is a principle which may be pushed to excess. But it is 
believed to be safer and more generous than the reverse 
policy. No doubt every one of these forms has a magical 
or superstitious element. But even for the purpose of 
superseding those barbarous elements, it is wiser to dwell 
on the noble and spiritual aspect which the same forms 
may wear ; and with the purpose of reconciling the ulti- 
mate progress of civilization with Christianity, it is the 
only course which can be advantageously pursued. 

7. Finally, two conclusions are obvious. First, that 
which existed in the early ages of the Church cannot be 
deemed incompatible with its essence in later ages. Sec- 
ondly, that which did not exist in primitive times cannot 
be deemed indispensable to the essence of the Church, 
either late or earl3^ 

Deanery, Westminster : 
December, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

BAPTISM. 

PAGE 

Baptism in the Apostolic age 1 

Baptism in the Patristic age 4 

I. The meaning of Baptism : — 

1. As an act of cleansing 7 

2. As a plunge 9 

3. As an assimilation of the Christian character . . . .12 
II. Changes in Baptism : — 

1. The opinions concerning it 14 

2. The form of administration .21 

CHAPTER II. 

THE EUCHARIST. 

The time of its first institution 34 

1. Its connection with Judaism ....... 36 

2. Selection of the most universal elements 37 

3. Parting meal 38 

4. Its future meaning ......... 4o 

CHAPTER III. 

THE EUCHARIST IN THE EARLY CHURCH. 

I. Its festive character 45 

II. Its evening character 50 

III. The posture of the recipient 51 

IV. The elements 52 

The bread 52 

The wine and water 54 

The fish 55 

V. The table 57 

VI. The posture and position of the minister . . . ^ . 58 

VII. Reading of the Scriptures ; the ambones .... 60 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

VIII. The Homily 61 

IX. The kiss of peace 62 

X. The Liturgy 63 

The offering of the bread and wine 66 

The Lord^s Prayer 68 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE EUOHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 

I. The ancient idea of Sacrifice 73 

II. Substitution of new ideas 74 

1. Prayer and praise 75 

2. Charitable efforts 77 

3. Self-sacrifice 77 

III. Exemplified in the Gospel History , 78 

IV. Exemplified in the Christian Church 78 

V. Exemplified in the Eucharist 80 

CHAPTER V. 

THE REAL PRESENCE. 

The spiritual and moral presence of the Redeemer .... 86 

Reasons for its rejection by the Catholic Church .... 89 

I. Misuse of parabolical language 91 

II. Prevalence of magic 93 

III. Union of physical with moral ideas .95 

IV. Mixture of ideas in the Lutheran Church .... 105 
V. Mixture of ideas in the English Church 107 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST. 

I. Use of the words in St. John's Gospel 113 

II. Use of the words in the Synoptic Gospels . . . . 115 

1. The Body, the essence of Christ's character . . . .117 

2. The Body, the Christian community 1 22 

3. The Blood of Christ, the innei-most essence of Christ's char- 

acter 125 

Love 128 

Attestation 132 

Enthusiasm . . 133 

Cleansing 134 



CONTENTS. XI 
CHAPTER VII. 

ABSOLUTION. 

PAGE 

I. Binding and loosing 144 

Remitting and retaining 146 

IT. Universal application of the words 147 

III. Use of the words in the Ordination Service .... 155 

IV. Application of the words to confession and absolution . .156 

CHAPTER VIII. 

ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. 

I. Antiquarian import 163 

II. Dress of the ancient world 164 

1. The shirt 165 

2. The shawl 167 

3. The overcoat 168 

III. Their secular origin 171 

Their transformation 172 

Their contrasts . ' 180 

Importance of maintaining their indifference . . . .184 

The Ornaments' Rubric 185 

Attention to matters of real importance 191 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE BASILICA. 

Its form 197 

Its adaptation to Christian worship 199 

The popular character of Christian worship 201 

The secular origin of Christian usages 202 

The use of art 204 

CHAPTER X. 

THE CLERGY. 

I. The facts of the Institution 207 

1. The identity of Bishop and Presbyter .... 208 

2. Origin of the orders 208 

3. Vestiges of primitive usages 209 

4. The Deacons 210 

5. Appointment 212 

6. Forms of ordination . . . . . . . .212 

7. Their ministrations . 212 



XU CONTENTS. 

PAOB 

11. Growth of the clergy 213 

Origin of episcopacy 214 

III. Origin of the clergy 216 

CHAPTER XL 

THE POPE. 

The Pope : — 

Compared with the Emperor and the Snltan .... 220 

I. As the representative of Christian antiquity .... 222 

11. As successor of the Emperors of Rome 228 

III. As Italian prince 232 

IV. As "the Pope" 234 

V. As the chief ecclesiastic 244 

VI. His mixed character 246 

Note. His posture in the Communion 250 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE LITANY. 

I. Its origin 259 

II. Its contents . 264 

III. Its form 266 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE KOMAN CATACOMBS. 

I. Their structure 274 

n. Their pictures 275 

III. Their characteristic ideas 277 

1. Cheerfulness 278 

2. Choice of heathen subjects 279 

3. Gracefulness of art 279 

IV. Christian ideas 281 

1. Good Shepherd : 281 

(a) Connection with heathen ideas 284 

(5) Joyous aspect 284 

(c) Latitude 285 

{d) Simplicity 285 

2. The Vine 286 

(a) Joyousness 287 

(6) Wide diffusion 288 

(c) Variety 289 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

PAGE 

V. Epitaphs 289 

1. Their simplicity 289 

2. Their idea of rest . . 291 

3. The idea of immortality 292 

VI. Conclusion 293 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost 296 

I. Meaning of the words : — 

1. The Father 297 

2. The Son 299 

3. The Spirit 305 

II. Their nnion . 307 

Their separation . . 310 

III. Conclusion 313 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE lord's PRATER. 

1. Its universality 315 

2. Its Liturgical form 317 

3. Its varieties 317 

4. Its selection from Rabbinical writings 319 

5. Its brevity 320 

6. Its contents 321 

7. Its conclusion 324 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE COUNCIL AND CREED OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

Gregory Nazianzen 327 

Maximus 331 

Funeral of Athanaric . 336 

Deposition of Gregory 342 

Election of Nectarius 346 

End of Council 348 

Creed of Constantinople 350 

Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon 350 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 

PAGE 

I. The Ten Commandments 372 

1. Israelite arrangements 372 

2. Christian arrangements 373 

II. Their importance 375 

III. Their spirit 376 

1. Eirst Commandment 376 

2. Second Commandment 377 

3. Third Commandment 378 

4. Fourth Commandment 378 

5. Fifth Commandment 380 

6. Sixth Commandment 381 

7. Seventh Commandment . 382 

8. Eighth Commandment 382 

9. Ninth Commandment 383 

10. Tenth Commandment 384 

IV. The Two Great Commandments 384 

V. The Eight Beatitudes 386 

VI. The Eleventh Commandment 386 

ADDENDA 393 

INDEX 395 



Errata. 

Page 13, eleven lines from bottom, /or imposed read impressed. 

" 33, fifteen lines from top, /or is read in, 

" 35, fourteen lines from top, /or more read mere. 

" 40, thirteen lines from bottom, for their read this. 

" 48, four lines from bottom, /)r obedniac read obednia. 

" 51, notQ, for avEi?.ece read dvineGs. 

" 91, fifteen lines from bottom, /or still read shall. 

" 326, note, for Lecture xiii. read Lecture xiv. 



CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS, 



CHAPTER L 

BAPTISM. 

What was Baptism in the Apostolic age ? It coin- 
cided with a vast religious change both of individuals and 
of nations. Multitudes of men and women were Baptism in 
seized with one common nnpuise, and aban- toiicage. 
doned, by the irresistible conviction of a day, an hour, a 
moment, their former habits, friends, associates, to be 
enrolled in a new society under the banner of a new 
faith. That new society was intended to be a society of 
" brothers ; " bound by ties closer than any earthly broth- 
erhood, filled with life and energy such as fall to the 
lot of none but the most ardent enthusiasts, yet tem- 
pered by a moderation and a wisdom such as enthusiasts 
have rarely possessed. It was moreover a society swayed 
by the presence of men whose words even now cause the 
heart to burn, and by the recent recollections of One, 
whom ''not seeing they loved with love unspeakable." 
Into this society they passed by an act as natural as it 
was expressive. The plunge into the bath of purification, 
long known among the Jewish nation as the symbol of a 
change of life, had been revived with a fresh energy by 
the Essenes, and it received a definite signification and 
impulse from the austere prophet who derived his name 
from the ordinance.^ This rite was retained as the pledge 

1 For John the Baptist, see Lectures on the Jeioish Churchy iii. 399. 
1 



2 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

of entrance into a new and universal communion. In 
that early age the scene of the transaction was either 
some deep wayside spring or well, as for the Ethiopian, 
or some rushiug"^ river, as the Jordan, or some vast reser- 
voir, as at Jericho ^ or Jerusalem, whither, as in the Baths 
of Caracalla at Rome, the whole population resorted for 
swimming or washing. 

The earliest scene of the immersion was in the Jordan. 
That rushing river — the one river of Palestine — found 
at last its fit purpose. Although no details are given of 
the external parts of the ceremony, a lively notion may 
be formed of the transaction by the scene which now 
takes place at the bathing of the pilgrims at Easter.^ 
Their approach to the spot is by night. Above is the 
bright Paschal moon, before them moves a bright flare of 
torches, on each side huge watch-fires break the darkness 
of the night, and act as beacons for the successive de- 
scents of the road. The sun breaks over the eastern hills 
as the head of the cavalcade reaches the brink of the 
Jordan. The Sacred River rushes through its thicket 
of tamarisk, poplar, willow, and agnus-castus, with rapid 
eddies, and of a turbid yellow color, like the Tiber at 
Rome, and about as broad. They dismount, and set to 
work to perform their bath ; most on the open space, 
some further up amongst the thickets ; some plunging 
in naked, — most, however, with white dresses, which 
they bring with them, and which, having been so used, 
are kept for their winding-sheets. Most of tlie bathers 
keep within the shelter of the bank, where the water is 
about four feet in depth, though with a bottom of very 
deep mud. The Coptic pilgrims are curiously distin- 
guished from the rest by the boldness with which they 

1 Compare the account of the young courtiers of Herod plunging in the tank 
at Jericho. Joseph. Ant. xv. 33. The word /JaTrn'^to is used for it. 

2 This account is tal^en from Sinai and Palestine, chap. 7. I have hardly 
altered it, lest the original impression should be lost. 



Chap. I.] IN THE RIVER JORDAN. 3 

dart into the main current, striking the water after their 
fashion alternately with their two arms, and playing with 
the eddies, which hurry them down and across as if they 
were in the cataracts of their own Nile ; crashing through 
the thick boughs of the jungle which, on the eastern 
bank of the stream, intercepts their progress, and then 
recrossing the river higher up, where they can wade, as- 
sisted by long poles which they have cut from the oppo- 
site thickets. It .is remarkable, considering the mixed 
assemblage of men and women, in such a scene, that 
there is so little appearance of levity or indecorum. A 
primitive domestic character pervades in a singular form 
the whole transaction. The families which have come 
on their single mule or camel now bathe together, with 
the utmost gravity ; the father receiving from the mother 
the infant, which has been brought to receive the one 
immersion which will suffice for the rest of its life, and 
thus, by a curious economy of resources, save it from the 
expense and danger of a future pilgrimage in after-years. 
In about two hours the shores are cleared ; with the 
same quiet they remount their camels and horses ; and 
before the noonday heat has set in, are again encamped 
on the upper plain of Jericho. Once more they may be 
seen. At the dead of night, the drum again wakes them 
for their homeward march. The torches again go be- 
fore; behind follows the vast multitude, mounted, pass- 
ing in profound silence over that silent plain — so silent 
that, but for the tinkling of the drum, its departure 
would hardly be perceptible. The troops stay on the 
ground to the end, to guard the rear, and when the last 
roll of the drum announces that the last soldier is gone, 
the whole plain returns again to its perfect solitude. 

Such, on the whole, was the first Baptism. We are 
able to track its history through the next three centuries. 
The rite was still in great measure what in its origin it 



4 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

had been almost universally, the change from darkness 
to light, from evil to good; the " second birth" of men 
from the corrupt society of the dying Roman Empire 
into the purifying and for the most part elevating influ- 
ence of the living Christian Church. In some respects 
the moral responsibility of the act must have been im- 
pressed upon the converts by the severe, sometimes the 
life-long, preparation for the final pledge, more deeply 
than by the sudden and almost instantaneous transition 
which characterized the Baptism of the Apostolic age. 
But gradually the consciousness of this " questioning of 
the good conscience towards God " was lost in the stress 
laid with greater and greater emphasis on the " putting 
away the filth of the flesh." 

Let us conceive ourselves present at those extraordi- 
nary scenes, to which no existing ritual of any European 
Church offers any likeness. There was, as a 

Celebration i i i • i • i . 

in the Pa- sjeueral rule, but one baptistery-^ m each city, 

tristic age. ^ , , . . 

and such baptisteries were apart from the 
churches. There was but one time of the year when 
the rite was administered — namely, between Easter and 
Pentecost. There was but one personage who could ad- 
minister it — the presiding oSicer of the community, the 
Bishop, as the Chief Presbyter was called after the first 
century. There was but one hour for the ceremony ; it 
was midnight. The torches flared through the dark hall 
as the troops of converts flocked in. The baptistery 2 
consisted of an inner and an outer chamber. In the 
outer chamber stood the candidates for baptism, stripped 
to their shirts : and, turning to the west as the region of 

1 At Rome there was more than one. 

2 In the most beautiful baptistery in the -world, at Pisa, baptisms even in the 
Middle Ages only took place on the t-wo days of the Nativity and the Decolla- 
tion of John the Baptist, and the nobles stood in the galleries to -witness the 
ceremony. See Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, i. pp. 160, 
161. 



Chap. I.] IN THE PATEISTIC AGE. 6 

sunset, they stretched forth their hands through the dimly 
lit chamber, as in a defiant attitude towards the Evil 
Spirit of Darkness, and speaking to him by name, said : 
" I renounce thee, Satan, and all thy works, and all thy 
pomp, and all thy service." Then they turned, like a 
regiment, facing right round to the east, and repeated, in 
a form more or less long, the belief in the Father, the 
Son, and the Spirit, which has grown up into the so-called 
Apostles' Creed in the West, and the so-called Nicene 
Creed in the East. They then advanced into the inner 
chamber. Before them yawned the deep pool or reser- 
voir, and standing by the deacon, or deaconess, as the case 
might be, to arrange that all should be done with de- 
cency. The whole troop undressed completely as if for 
a bath, and stood up,^ naked, before the Bishop, who pat 
to each the questions, to which the answer was returned 
in a loud and distinct voice, as of those who knew what 
they had undertaken. They then plunged into the water. 
Both before and after the immersion their bare limbs were 
rubbed with oil from head to foot ; ^ they were then 
clothed in white gowns, and received, as token of the 
kindly feeling of their new brotherhood, the kiss of peace, 
and a taste of honey and milk ; and they expressed their 
new faith by using for the first time the Lord's Prayer. 

These are the outer forms of which, in the Western 
Churches, almost every particular is altered even in the 
most material points. Immersion has become the excep- 
tion and not the rule. Adult baptism, as well as immer- 
sion, exists only among the Baptists. The dramatic 
action of the scene is lost. The anointing, like the bath, 
is reduced to a few drops of oil in the Roman Church, 
and in the Protestant churches has entirely disappeared. 

1 Bingham, xi. 2, § 1, 2. 

2 Ibid. xi. 9, § 3, 45 ; xii. 1, 4. Possibly after immersion the undressing and 
the anointing were partial. 



6 BAPTISM. [Chap. L 

What once could only be administered by Bishops, is 
now administered by every clergyman, and throughout 
the Roman Church by laymen and even by women. We 
propose then to ask what is the residue of the mean- 
ing of Baptism which has survived, and what we may 
learn from it, and from the changes through which it has 
passed. 

I. The ordinance of Baptism was founded on the Jew- 
ish — we may say the Oriental — custom, which, both in 
ancient and modern times, regards ablution, cleansing of 
the hands, the face, and the person, at once as a means of 
health and as a sign of purity. We shall presently see 
that here as elsewhere the Founder of Christianity chose 
rather to sanctify and elevate what already existed than 
to create and invent a new form for Himself. Baptism 
is the oldest ceremonial ordinance that Christianity pos- 
sesses ; it is the only one which is inherited from Juda- 
ism. It is thus interesting as the only ordinance of the 
Christian Church which equally belonged to the merciful 
Jesus and the austere John. Out of all the manifold 
religious practices of the ancient law — sacrifices, offer- 
ings, temple, tabernacle, scapegoat, sacred vestments, 
sacred trumpets — He chose this one alone ; the most 
homely, the most universal, the most innocent of all. He 
might have chosen the peculiar Nazarite custom of the 
long tresses and the rigid abstinence by which Samson 
and Samuel and John had been dedicated to the service 
of the Lord. He did nothing of the sort. He might 
have continued the strange and painful rite of circum- 
cision. He, or at least His Apostles, rejected it alto- 
gether. He might have chosen some elaborate ceremo- 
nial like the initiation into the old Egyptian and Grecian 
mysteries. He chose instead what every one could under- 
stand. He took what, at least in Eastern and Southern 
countries, was the most delightful, the most ordinary, 
the most salutarv, of social observances. 



Chap. I.] AS A CLEANSING RITE. 7 

1. By choosing water and the use of the bath, He in- 
dicated one chief characteristic of the Christian religion. 
Whatever else the Christian was to be, Bap- 

Baptism as a 

tism ^ — the use of water — showed that he was cleansing 

rite. 

to be clean and pure, in body, soul, and spirit ; 
clean even in body. Cleanliness is a duty which some of 
the monastic communities of Christendom have despised, 
and some have even treated as a crime. But such was 
not the mind of Him who chose the washing with water 
for the prime ordinance of His followers. " Wash and be 
clean " was the prophet's admonition of old to the Syrian 
whom he sent to bathe in the river Jordan. It was 
the text of the one only sermon by which a well-known 
geologist of this country was known to his generation. 
" Cleanliness next to godliness " was the maxim of the 
great religious prophet of England in the last century, 
John Wesley. With the Essenes, amongst whom Bap- 
tism originated, we may almost say that it was godli- 
ness.2 If the early Christians had, as we shall see, their 
daily Communion, the Essenes, for the sake of maintain- 
ing their punctilious cleanliness, had even more than 
daily Baptism. Every time that we see the drops of 
water poured over the face in Baptism, they are signs to 
us of the cleanly habits which our Master prized when 
He founded the rite of Baptism, and when, by His own 
Baptism in the sweet soft stream of the rapid Jordan, 
He blessed the element of water for use as the best and 
choicest of God's natural gifts to man in his thirsty, 
weary, wayworn passage through the dust and heat of 

1 This is the meaning of the frequent reference to "water" in St. John's 
writings. As in John vi. 54, the phrases "eating" and "drinking," "flesh 
and blood," refer to the spiritual nourishment of which the Eixcharist, never 
mentioned in the Fourth Gospel, was the outward expression, so in John iii. 5, 
the word "water" refers to the moral purity s}Tnbolized by Baptism, which, 
in like manner (as a universal institution) is never mentioned in that Gospel. 

2 Lectures on the Jewish Church, iii. 397. 



8 BAPTISM. (Chap. I. 

the world. But the cleanness of the body, in the adop- 
tion of Baptism by Christ and His forerunner, was meant 
to indicate the perfect cleanness, the unsullied purity of 
the soul; or, as the English Baptismal Service quaintly 
expresses it, the mystical washing away of sin — that is, 
the washing, cleansing process that effaces the dark spots 
of selfishness and passion in the human character, in 
which, by nature and by habit, they had been so deeply 
ingrained. It was a homely maxim of Keble, "Associate 
the idea of sin with the idea of dirt." It indicates also 
that as the Christian heart must be bathed in an atmos- 
phere of purity, so the Christian mind must be bathed in 
an atmosphere of truth, of love of truth, of perfect truth- 
fulness, of transparent veracity and sincerity. What 
filthy, indecent talk or action is to the heart and affec- 
tions, that a lie however white, a fraud however pious, is 
to the mind and conscience. Sir Isaac Newton is said 
by his friends to have had the whitest soul that they ever 
knew. That is the likeness of a truly Christian soul as 
indicated by the old baptismal washing : the whiteness 
of purity, the clearness and transparency of truth. 

There was one form of this idea which continued far 
down into the Middle Ages, long after it had been disso- 
ciated from Baptism, but which may be given as an illus- 
tration of the same idea represented by the same form. 
The order of knighthood in England, of which the ban- 
ners hang in King Henry the Seventh's Chapel in West- 
minster Abbey, and which is distinguished from all the 
other orders as the " most honorable," is called the Order 
of the Bath. This name was given because in the early 
days of chivalry the knights, who were enlisted in de- 
fence of right against wrong, truth against falsehood, 
honor against dishonor, on the evening before they were 
admitted to the Order, were laid in a bath ^ and thor- 

1 To "dub" a kuight is said to be taken from "the dip," "doob" in the 
bath. Evelyn saw the Knights in their baths {Diary, April 19, 1661). 



Chap. I.] AS A PLUNGE. 9 

ougbly washed, in order to show how bright and pure 
ought to be the Kves of those who engage in noble enter- 
prises. Sir Gahihad, amongst King Arthur's Knights of 
the Round Table, is the type at once of a true ancient 
Knight of the Bath and of a true Apostolic Christian. 

My good blade carves the helms of men, 

My tough lance thrusteth sure ; 
My strength is as the strength of ten, 

Because my heart is pure. 

2. This leads us to the second characteristic of the act 
of Baptism. " Baptism " was not only a bath, but a 
plunge — an entire submersion in the deep Baptism as a 
water, a leap as into the rolling sea or the rush- P^^^^e- 
ing river, where for the moment the waves close over the 
bather's head, and he emerges again as from a momen- 
tary grave ; or it was the shock of a shower-bath — the 
rush of water passed over the whole person from capa- 
cious vessels, so as to wrap the recipient as within the 
veil of a splashing cataract.^ This was the part of the 
ceremony on which the Apostles laid so much stress. It 
seemed to them like a burial of the old former self and 
the rising up again of the new self. So St. Paul com- 
pared it to the Israelites passing through the roaring 
waves of the Red Sea, and St. Peter to the passing 
through the deep waters of the flood. " We are buried," 
said St. Paul, " with Christ by baptism at his death ; 
that, like as Christ was raised, thus we also should walk 
in the newness of life." ^ Baptism, as the entrance into 
the Christian society, was a complete change from the 
old superstitions or restrictions of Judaism to the freedom 
and confidence of the Gospel ; from the idolatries and 
profligacies of the old heathen world to the light and 
purity of Christianity. It was a change effected only by 
the same effort and struggle as that with which a strong 

1 See Dr. Smith's History of Christian Antiquities, vol. i. p. 169. 

2 Eom. vi. 4; 1 Cor. x. 2; 1 Pet. iii. SO, 21. 



10 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

swimmer or an adventurous diver throws himself into 
the stream and struggles with the waves, and comes up 
with increased energy out of the depths of the dark 
abyss. 

This, too, is a lesson taught by Baptism which still 
lives, although the essence of the material form is gone. 
There is now no disappearance as in a watery grave. 
There is now no conscious and deliberate choice made 
by the eager convert at the cost of cruel partings from 
friends, perhaps of a painful death. It is but the few 
drops sprinkled, a ceremony undertaken long before or 
long after the adoption of Christianity has occurred. But 
the thing signified by the ancient form still keeps be- 
fore us that which Christians were intended to be. This 
is why it was connected both in name and in substance 
with "Conversion." In the early Church the careful dis- 
tinction which later times have made between Baptism, 
Regeneration, Conversion, and Repentance did not exist. 
They all meant the same thing. In the Apostolic age 
they were, as we have seen, absolutely combined with 
Baptism. There was then no waiting till Easter or Pen- 
tecost for the great reservoir when the catechumens met 
the Bishop — the river, the wayside well were taken the 
moment the convert was disposed to turn, as we say, the 
new leaf in his life. And even afterwards, in the second 
century. Regeneration (TraXtyyeveo-ta), which gradually was 
taken to be the equivalent of Baptism, was, in the first 
instance, the equivalent of Repentance and Conversion. i 
A long and tedious controversy about thirty years ago 
took place on the supposed distinction between these 

1 As a general rule, in the writings of the later Fathers, there is no doubt 
that the word which we translate " Regeneration " is used exclusively for Bap- 
tism. But it is equally certain that in the earlier Fathers it is used for Repent- 
ance, or, as we should now say. Conversion. See Clem. Rom. i. 9 ; Justin. 
Dial, in Trypli. p. 231, B. d. ; Clemens Alex, (apud Eus. H. E. iii. 23), Strom. 
lib. ii. 8, 425, A. 



Chap. I.] AS A PLUNGE. 11 

words. Such a controversy would have Been unintelligi- 
ble to Justin Martyr or Clement of Alexandria.^ But 
the common idea which the words represent is still as 
necessary, and has played as great a part in the later 
history of the Church as it did at the beginning.^ Con- 
version is the turning round from a wrong to a right di- 
rection ; Repentance (/xeravoia) is a change of thoughts 
and feelings which is always going on in any one who 
reforms himself at all ; Regeneration is the growth of a 
second character, always recurring, though at times with 
a more sudden shock. With us these changes are 
brought about by a thousand different methods ; educa- 
tion, affliction, illness, change of position in life, a happy 

1 The Gorham litigation of 1850, which turned on the necessity of "an un- 
conditional regeneration in Baptism," has now drifted into the limbo of extinct 
controversies. The epigram of Sir George Rose and the judgment of Bishop 
Thirlwall had indeed sealed its doom at the time. I quote a sentence from 
each : — 

" Bishop and Ticar, 
Why do you bicker 

Each with the other, 
When both are right, 
Or each is quite 
As wrong as the other? " 

The Gorham Judgment Versified. 

** In no part of the controversy was it stated in what sense the word ' Regen- 
eration ' was understood by either party. In no other instance has there been 
so great a disproportion between the intrinsic moment of the fact and the excite- 
ment which it has occasioned." —Thirlwall, Remains, i. 153, 158. 

But it was not till some years afterwards that the wit of the lawyer and judg- 
ment of the Bishop were confirmed from an unexpected quarter. Dr. Mozley, 
afterwards Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, had in his calmer moments 
reviewed the whole question, and decided that the decision of the Privy Coun- 
cil, so vehemently attacked at the time by his school as subversive of the Chris- 
tian faith, was right, and that its opponents had wasted their fears and their 
indignation in behalf of a phantom. See his two works on The Augustinian 
Doctrine of Predestination, 1855, and on Baptismal Regeneration, 1856. 

2 It has been often remarked that examples of such total renewal of character 
are very rare outside of the influence of Christianity. But (not to speak of Mo- 
hammedan and Indian instances) a striking instance, corresponding almost en- 
tirely to the conversions in Christendom, has been pointed out — that of Polemo, 
under the teaching of Xenocrates. See Horace, Satires, II. iii. 254, with the 
annotations from Valerius Maximus and Diogenes Laertius. 



12 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

marriage, a new field of usefulness — every one of these 
gives us some notion of the early Baptism in its better 
and more permanent side, and in every one of these that 
better side of the early Baptism may be reproduced. 
"We lie down to sleep, and we wake up and find ourselves 
new creatures, with new hopes, new affections, new in- 
terests, new aspiration s^ Every such case which we have 
known, every such experience in ourselves, helps us 
better to understand what Baptism once was ; and the 
recollection of that original Baptism helps us better to 
apply to ourselves the language of the Bible concerning 
it — to that which now most nearly resembles it. We 
must, if we would act in the spirit of the Apostolic Bap- 
tism, be not once only, but " continually," " mortifying," 
that is, killing, drowning, burning out our selfish affec- 
tions and narrow prejudices ; and not once only, but 
"daily," proceeding, — daily renewed and born again in 
all virtue and godliness of living, all strength and up- 
rightness, of character. 

3. And this brings us to the third characteristic of the 
early Baptism. "Baptism," says the English Baptismal 
Service, " doth represent unto us our Christian profession, 
which is to follow Christ and to be made like unto him." 
This is the element added to the Baptism of John. In 
the first two characteristics of Baptism which we have 
mentioned, water as signifying cleanliness of body and 
mind, and immersion as indicating the plunge into a new 
life, the Baptism of John and the Baptism of Christ 
are identical. John's Baptism, no less than Christian 
Baptism, was the Baptism of purity, of regeneration, " of 
remission of sins." ^ But Christ added yet this further ; 
that the new atmosphere into which ihej rose was to be 
the atmosphere of the Spirit of Christ. This was ex- 
pressed to the Christians of the first centuries in two 

1 Luke iii. 3. 



Chap. I.] AS AN IMITATION OF CHRIST. 13 

ways: First, when they came up from the waters, naked 
and shivering, from the cold plunge into the bath or 
river, they were wrapped round in a white robe, and 
this suggested the thought that the recipients of Baptism 
put on — that is, were clothed, wrapped, enveloped in — 
the fine linen, white and clean, which is the goodness and 
righteousness of Christ and of His saints, not by any fic- 
titious transfer, but in deed and in truth ; His character, 
His grace, His mercy, His truthfulness were to be the 
clothing, the uniform, the badge, the armor of those who 
by this act enrolled themselves in His service. And, 
secondly, this was what made Baptism especially a *' Sac- 
rament." It is common now to speak of the Eucharist as 
"^Ae Sacrament." But in the early ages it was rather 
Baptism which was the special Sacrament Qsacramen- 
tum)^ the oath, the pledge in which, as the soldiers en- 
listing in the Roman army swore a great oath on the sa- 
cred eagles of allegiance to the Emperor, so converts 
bound themselves by a great oath to follow their Divine 
Commander wherever He led them. And this was fur- 
ther imposed upon them by the name in which they were 
baptized. It was, if not always, yet whenever we hear 
of its use in the Acts of the Apostles, in the name of the 
'''•Lord Jesus^'^ Doubtless the more comprehensive form 
in which Baptism is now everywhere administered in the 
threefold name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Spirit, soon superseded the simpler form of that in the 
name of the Lord Jesus only. But the earlier use points 
out clearly how, along with the all-embracing love of the 
Universal Father, and the all-penetrating presence of the 
Eternal Spirit, the historical, personal, gracious, endearing 

1 Acts ii. 38, viii. 16, x. 48. The form of the name of the Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, though found in early times, was not universal. Cyprian first and 
Pope Nicholas I. afterwards acknowledged the validity of Baptism "In the name 
of the Lord Jesus." See Dr. Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. 
i. p. 162. 



14 BAPTISM. [Chap. L 

form of the Founder of the Faith was the first and lead- 
ing thought that was planted in the mind of the early- 
Christians as they rose out of the font of their first im- 
mersion to enter on their new and diflficult course. 

It has thus far been intended to show what is the 
essential meaning of the early Baptism which has en- 
dured through all its changes. And it is in full ac- 
cordance with the primitive records of Christianity to 
dwell on these essentials as distinct from its forms. It is 
not by the water, much or little, but by the Spirit (as it 
is expressed in the Fourth Gospel), ^ that the second 
birth of man is wrought in the heart. It is not by the 
putting away the natural filth of the outward flesh,^ but 
(as it is expressed in the First Epistle of St. Peter) by 
the inward questioning of a good conscience towards 
God, that Baptism can ever save any one. It was not by 
the act of baptizing, but by proclaiming the glad tidings 
of the kingdom of God, that the world was converted. 
Jesus,^ we are told, never baptized, and Paul thanked 
God that, with a few insignificant exceptions, he baptized 
none of the Corinthians. 

II. But there is the further instruction to be derived 
from a nearer view of the changes through which the 
forms passed. 

1. First there are the curious notions which have con- 
gregated round the ceremony, and which have almost en- 
tirely passed away. There was the belief in 

Ahcient i . ^^^ -ii 

opinion on early affes that it was like a maoical charm. 

Baptism. , /, ^ ^ , , ^ . , . 

which acted on the persons who received it, 
without any consent or intention either of administrator 
or recipient, as in the case of children or actors perform- 
ing the rite with no serious intention. There was also 

1 John iii. 5-8. 

2 See Professor Plumptre's ISTotes on 1 Peter iii. 21- 
8 John iv. 2 ; 1 Cor. i. 14-16. 



Chap. L] ANCIENT OPINIONS OF ITS NECESSITY. 15 

the belief that it wiped away all sins, however long they 
had been accumulating, and however late it was ad- 
ministered. This is illustrated by the striking instance 
of the postponement of the baptism of the first Christian 
Emperor Constantine, who had presided at the Council of 
Nicsea, preached in churches, directed the whole religion 
of the empire, and yet was all the while unbaptized till 
the moment of his death, when, in the last hours of his 
mortal illness, the ceremony was performed by Eusebius 
of Nicomedia. There was also the belief, in the third 
and fourth centuries almost as firmly fixed as the corre- 
sponding belief in regard to the Eucharist, that the water 
was changed into the blood of Christ. 

There was the yet more strange persuasion that no one 
could be saved unless he had passed through the immer- 
sion of Baptism. It was not the effect of divine grace 
upon the soul, but of the actual water upon the body, on 
which those ancient Baptists built their hopes of im- 
mortality. If only the person of a human being be wrapt 
in the purifying element, he was thought to be redeemed 
from the uncleanness of his birth. The boy Athanasius 
throwing water in jest over his playmate on the sea-shore 
performed, as it was believed, a valid baptism ; the 
Apostles in the spray of the storm on the sea of Galilee, 
the penitent thief in the water that rushed from the 
wound of the Crucified, were imagined to have received 
the baptism which had else been withheld from them. 
And this "washing of water" was now deemed absolutely 
necessary for salvation. No human being could pass into 
the presence of God hereafter unless he had passed 
through the waters of baptism here. " This," says Vos- 
sius, " is the judgment of all antiquity, that they perish 
everlastingly who will not be baptized, when they may." 
From this belief followed gradually, but surely, the con- 
clusion that the natural end not only of all heathens, but 



16 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

of all the patriarchs and samts of the Old Testament, 
was in the realms of perdition. And, further, the Pela- 
gian controversy drew out the mournful doctrine, that in- 
fants, dying before baptism, were excluded from the Di- 
vine presence — the doctrine when expressed in its dark- 
est form, that they were consigned to everlasting fire. 
At the close of the fifth century this belief had become 
universal, chiefly through the means of Augustine. It 
was the turning-point of his contest with Pelagius. It 
was the dogma from which nothing could induce him to 
part. It was this which he meant by insisting on " the 
remission of original sin in infant baptism." In his 
earlier years he had doubted whether, possibly, he might 
not leave it an open question ; but in his full age, " God 
forbid," said he, " that I should leave the matter so." The 
extremest case of a child dying beyond the reach of bap- 
tism is put to him, and he decides against it. In the 
Fifth Council of Carthage, the milder view is mentioned 
of those who, reposing on the gracious promise, " In my 
Father's house are many mansions," trusted that among 
those many mansions, there might still be found, even 
for those infants who, by want of baptism, were shut out 
from the Divine presence, some place of shelter. That 
milder view, doubtless under Augustine's influence, was 
anathematized. Happily, this dark doctrine was never 
sanctioned by the formal Creeds of the Church. On this, 
as on every other point connected with the doctrine of 
Baptism, they preserved a silence, whether by design, in- 
difference, or accident, we know not. But among the 
individual Fathers from the time of Augustine it seems 
impossible to dispute the judgment of the great English 
authority on Baptism : " How hard soever this opinion 
may seem, it is the constant opinion of the ancients." ^ 

1 Wall's History of Infant Baptism, vol. i. p. 200. In this work, and in 
Bingham's Antiquities, will be found most of the authorities for the statements 
in the text. 



Chap. I.] ANCIENT OPINIONS OF ITS NECESSITY. 17 

" I am sorry," says Bishop Hall, and we share his sorrow, 
" that so harsh an opinion should be graced with the 
name of a father so reverend, so divine — whose sentence 
yet let no man plead by halves." All who profess to go 
by the opinion of the ancients and the teaching of Augus- 
tine must be prepared to believe that immersion is es- 
sential to the efficacy of baptism, that unbaptized infants 
must be lost forever, that baptized infants must receive 
the Eucharist, or be lost in like manner. For this, too, 
strange as it may seem, was yet a necessary consequence 
of the same materializing system. " He who held it im- 
possible " (we again use the words of Bishop Hall) " for 
a child to be saved unless the baptismal water were 
poured on his face, held it also as impossible for the 
same infant unless the sacramental bread were received 
in his mouth. And, lest any should plead different in- 
terpretations, the same St. Augustine avers this later 
opinion also, touching the necessary communicating of 
children, to have been once the common judgment of the 
Church of Rome." 1 

Such were the doctrines of the Fathers on Infant 
Baptism, — doctrines so deeply affecting our whole con- 
ceptions of God and of man, that, in comparison, the 
gravest questions of late times shrink into insignificance, 
— doctrines so different from those professed by any 
English, we may almost add any European, clergyman, 
of the present day, that had the Pope himself appeared 
before the Bishop of Hippo, he would have been rejected 
at once as an unbaptized heretic. 

It is a more pleasing task to trace the struggle of 
Christian goodness and wisdom, by which the Church 
was gradually delivered from this iron yoke. No doc- 
trine has ever arisen in the Church more entirely con- 
trary to the plainest teaching of its original documents. 

1 Bishop Hall's Letter to the Lady Honoria Hay. 
2 



18 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

In the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms,^ — where 
the requisites of moral life are enumerated as alone nec- 
essary to propitiate the Divine favor, — it is needless to 
say that Baptism is never mentioned. In the New Tes- 
tament the highest blessings are pronounced on those 
who, whether children or adults,^ had never been bap- 
tized. Even in the Patristic age itself (in its earlier stage) 
the recollection of the original freedom of Christianity 
had not quite died out. Tertullian must have accepted, 
with hesitation, if he accepted at all, the universar con- 
demnation of unbaptized children. Salvian, who acknowl- 
edged freely the virtues of the Vandal heretics, must 
have scrupled to repudiate the virtues of the unbaptized 
heathens. No General or Provincial Council, except the 
Fifth of Carthage, ventured to affirm any doctrine on the 
subject. The exception in behalf of martyrs left an open- 
ing, at least in principle, which would by logical conse- 
quence admit other exceptions, of which the Fathers 
never dreamed. The saints of the Old Testament were 
believed to have been rescued from their long prison- 
house by the hypothesis of a liberation effected for them 
through the Descent into Hell. But these were contra- 
dictions and exceptions to the prevailing doctrine ; and 
the gloomy period which immediately followed the death 
of Augustine, fraught as it was with every imaginable 
horror of a falling empire, was not likely to soften the 
harsh creed which he had bequeathed to it ; and the 
chains which the " durus pater infantum " had thrown 
round the souls of children were riveted by Gregory the 
Great. At last, however, with the new birth of the 
European nations the humanity of Christendom revived. 
One by one the chief strongholds of the ancient belief 

1 See Psalms xv. xix. xxiv. cxix. 

2 Matt. V. 1-11, vii. 24, 25, viii. 10, 11, xii. 50, xviii. 3-5, xxv. 34-39 ; Mark 
X. 14 ; Luke xv. 32 ; John xiv. 23 ; Acts x. 4, 44. 



Chap. I.] ANCIENT OPINIONS OF ITS NECESSITY. 1? 

yielded to the purer and loftier instincts (to use no higher 
name) which guided the Christian Church in its onward 
progress, dawning more and more unto the perfect day. 
First disappeared the necessity of immersion. Then, to 
the Master of the Sentences we owe the decisive change 
of doctrine which delivered the souls of infants from the 
everlasting fire to which they had been handed over by 
Augustine and Fulgentius, and placed them, with the 
heroes of the heathen world, in that mild Limbo or 
Elysium which is so vividly described in the pages of 
Dante. Next fell the practice of administering to them 
the Eucharistic elements. Last of all, in the fourteenth 
century, the strong though silent protest against the 
magical theory of Baptism itself was effected in the post- 
ponement of the rite of Confirmation, which, down to 
that time, had been regarded as an essential part of 
Baptism, and, as such, was administered simultaneously 
with it. An ineffectual stand was made in behalf of 
the receding doctrine of Augustine by Gregory of Rimini, 
known amongst his " seraphic " and " angelic " colleagues 
by the unenviable title of " Tormentor Infantum " ; and 
some of the severer Reformers, both in England and 
Germany, for a few years clung to the sterner view. 
But the victory was really won ; and the Council of 
Trent, no less than the Confession of Augsburg and the 
Thirty -nine Articles, has virtually abandoned the posi- 
tion, by which Popes and Fathers once maintained the 
absolute, unconditional, mystical efficacy of sacramental 
elements on the body and soul of the unconscious infant. 
The Eastern Church, indeed, with its usual tenacity of 
ancient forms, still immerses, still communicates, and still 
confirms its infant members. But in the Western Church 
the Christian religion has taken its more natural course ; 
and in the boldness which substituted a few drops of water 
for the ancient bath, which pronounced a charitable judg- 



20 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

ment on the innocent babes who die without the sacra- 
ments, which restored to the Eucharist something of its 
original intention, and gave to Confirmation a meaning 
of its own, by deferring both these solemn rites to years 
of discretion, we have at once the best proof of the total 
and necessary divergence of modern from ancient doc- 
trine, and the best guarantee that surely, though slowly, 
the true wisdom of Christianity will be justified of all 
her children. 

" The constant opinion of the ancients " in favor of the 
unconditional efficacy and necessity of Baptism has been 
happily exchanged for a constant opinion of the moderns, 
which has almost, if not entirely, spread through Chris- 
tendom. No doubt traces of the old opinion may occa- 
sionally be found. It is said that a Roman peasant, on 
receiving a remonstrance for spinning a cockchafer, re- 
plied, with a complete assurance of conviction, " There 
is no harm in doing it. Non ^ cosa battezzata." — " It 
is not baptized stuff." " They are not baptized things " 
is the reply which many a scholastic divine would have 
made to the complaint that Socrates and Marcus Aurelius 
were excluded from Paradise. The French peasants, we 
are told, regard their children before baptism simply as 
animals.^ Even in the English Church we sometimes 
hear a horror expressed by some excellent clergymen at 
using any religious words over the graves of unbaptized 
persons. The rubric which, in the disastrous epoch of 
1662, was for the first time introduced into the English 
Prayer Book, forbidding the performance of its burial 
service over the unbaptized, which till then had been 
permitted, still, through the influence of the Southern 
Convocation, maintains its place. But these are like the 
ghosts of former beliefs — lingering in dens and caves of 
the Church, visiting here and there their ancient haunts, 

1 Round my House, by P. G. Hamerton, pp. 254, 263. 



Chap. I.] CHANGE FROM IMMERSION. 21 

but almost everywhere receding, if slowly yet inevitably 
from the light of day. 

Such changes on such a momentous subject are amongst 
the most encouraging lessons of ecclesiastical history. 
They show how variable and contradictory, and therefore 
how capable of improvement, has been the theology of 
the Catholic as well as of the Protestant Churches, and 
how pregnant, therefore, are the hopes for the future of 
both. 

2. We now pass to the changes in the form itself. For 
the first thirteen centuries the almost universal practice 
of Baptism was that of which we read in the immersion 
New Testament, and which is the very mean- for^pri°f^. 
ing of the word "baptize,"^ — that those who ^'''°- 
were baptized were plunged, submerged, immersed into 
the water. That practice is still, as we have seen, con- 
tinued in Eastern Churches. In the Western Church it 
still lingers amongst Roman Catholics in the solitary in- 
stance of the cathedral of Milan; amongst Protestants in 
the numerous sect of the Baptists. It lasted long into 
the Middle Ages. Even the Icelanders, who at first 
shrank from the water of their freezing lakes, were rec- 
onciled when they found that they could use the warm 
water of the Geysers. And the cold climate of Russia 
has not been found an obstacle to its continuance through- 
out that vast empire. Even in the Church of England 
it is still observed in theory. The rubric in the Public 
Baptism for Infants enjoins that, unless for special causes, 
they are to be dipped, not sprinkled. Edward the Sixth 
and Elizabeth were both immersed. But since the be- 
ginning of the seventeenth century, the practice has be- 
come exceedingly rare. With the few exceptions just 
mentioned, the whole of the Western Churches. have now 
substituted for the ancient bath the ceremony of letting 

1 It is the meaning of the word taufen ("dip "). 



22 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

fall a few drops of water on the face. The reason of 
the change is obvious. The practice of immersion, 
though peculiarly suitable to the Southern and Eastern 
countries for which it was designed, was not found sea- 
sonable in the countries of the North and West. Not by 
any decree of Council or Parliament, but by the general 
sentiment of Christian liberty, this remarkable change 
was effected. Beginning in the thirteenth century, it 
has gradually driven the ancient Catholic usage out of 
the whole of Europe. There is no one who would now 
wish to go back to the old practice. It followed, no 
doubt, the example of the Apostles and of their Master. 
It has the sanction of the venerable Churches of the 
early ages, and of the sacred countries of the East. 
Baptism by sprinkling was rejected by the whole ancient 
Church (except in the rare case of death-beds or extreme 
necessity) as no baptism at all. Almost the first excep- 
tion was the heretic Novatian. It still has the sanction 
of the powerful religious community which numbers 
amongst its members such noble characters as John Bun- 
yan, Robert Hall, and Havelock. In a version of the 
Bible which the Baptist Church has compiled for its own 
use in America, where it excels 'in numbers all but the 
Methodists, it is thought necessary, and on philological 
grounds it is quite correct, to translate " John the Bap- 
tist" by "John the Immerser." It has even been de- 
fended on sanitary grounds. Sir John Floyer dated the 
prevalence of consumption to the discontinuance of bap- 
tism by immersion.^ But, speaking generally, the Chris- 
tian civilized world has decided against it. It is a 
striking example of the triumph of common sense and 
convenience over the bondage of form and custom. Per- 
haps no greater change has ever taken place in the out- 
ward form of Christian ceremony Avith such general 

1 Archceological Journal, No. 113, p. 77. 



Chap. I.] CHANGE FROM IMMERSION. 23 

agreement. It is a larger change even than that which 
the Roman Catholic Church has made in administering 
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in the bread without 
the wine. For whilst that was a change which did not 
affect the thing that was signified, the change from im- 
mersion to sprinkling has set aside the most of the Apos- 
tolic expressions regarding Baptism, and has altered the 
very meaning of the word. But whereas the withhold- 
ing of the cup produced the long and sanguinary war of 
Bohemia, and has been one of the standing grievances of 
Protestants against the Roman Catholic Church, the 
withdrawal of the ancient rite of immersion, decided by 
the usage of the whole ancient Church to be essential to 
the sacrament of Baptism, has been, with the exception 
of the insurrection of the Anabaptists of Miinster, con- 
ceded almost without a struggle. The whole transaction 
shows the wisdom of refraining from the enforcement of 
the customs of other regions and other climates on un- 
willing recipients. It shows how the spirit which lives 
and moves in human society can override even the most 
sacred ordinances. It remains an instructive example of 
the facility and silence with which, in matters of form, 
even the widest changes can be effected without any 
serious loss to Christian truth, and with great advantage 
to Christian solemnity and edification. The substitution 
of sprinkling for immersion must to many at the time, as 
to the Baptists ^ now, have seemed the greatest and most 
dangerous innovation. Now, by most Catholics and by 
most Protestants, it is regarded almost as a second nat- 
ure. 

3. Another change is not so complete, but is perhaps 
more important. In the Apostolic age, and in the three 

1 How dangerous this change is regarded by the excellent community of Bap- 
tists has been strongly brought out by the horror which this Essay has occa- 
sioned amongst them since it was originally published. 



24 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

centuries which followed, it is evident that, as a general 
rule, those who came to baptism came in full age, of 
their own deliberate choice. We find a few 
from adult cascs of the baptism of children ; in the third 
infautBap- ccuturj wc find ouc casc of the baptism of in- 
fants. Even amongst Christian households the 
instances of Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, 
Ephrem of Edessa, Augustine, Ambrose, are decisive 
proofs that it was not only not obligatory but not usual. 
All these distinguished personages had Christian parents, 
and yet were not baptized till they reached maturity. 
The old liturgical service of Baptism was framed for full- 
grown converts, and is only by considerable adaptation 
applied to the case of infants. Gradually the practice of 
baptizing infants spread, and after the fifth century the 
whole Christian world. East and West, Catholic and 
Protestant, Episcopal and Presbyterian (with the single 
exception of the sect of the Baptists before mentioned), 
have adopted it. Whereas, in the early ages. Adult Bap- 
tism was the rule, and Infant Baptism the exception, in 
later times Infant Baptism ^ is the rule, and Adult Bap- 
tism the exception. 

What is the justification of this almost universal de- 
parture from the primitive usage? There may have 
been many reasons, some bad, some good. One, no 
doubt, was the superstitious feeling already mentioned 
which regarded Baptism as a charm, indispensable to 
salvation, and which insisted on imparting it to every 
human being who could be touched with water, however 
unconscious. Hence the eagerness with which Roman 
Catholic missionaries, like St. Francis Xavier, have made 
it the chief glory of their mission to baptize heathen pop- 

1 In the Church of England there was no office for Adult Baptism in the 
Prayer Book before 1662, and that which was then added is evidently intended 
for the baptism of heathen tribes collectively. 



Chap. L] OF INFANTS. 25 

ulatioiis wholesale, in utter disregard of tlie primitive or 
Protestant practice of long previous preparation.^ Hence 
the capture of children for baptism without the consent 
of their parents, as in the celebrated case of the Jewish 
boy Mortara. Hence the curious decision of the Sor- 
bonne quoted in " Tristram Shandy." Hence in the 
early centuries, and still in the Eastern Churches, coex- 
tensive with Infant Baptism, the practice of Infant Com- 
munion, both justified on the same grounds, and both 
based on the mechanical application of Biblical texts to 
cases which by their very nature were not contemplated 
in the Apostolic age. 

But there is a better side to the growth of this practice 
which, even if it did not mingle in its origin, is at least 
the cause of its continuance. It lay deep in early Chris- 
tian feeling that the fact of belonging to a Christian 
household consecrated every member of it. Whether 
baptized or not, the Apostle ^ urged that, because the 
parents were holy, therefore the children were holy. 
They were not to be treated as outcasts ; they were not 
to be treated as heathens ; they were to be recognized as 
part of the chosen people. This passage, whilst it is con- 
clusive against the practice of Infant Baptism in the 
Apostolic age, is a recognition of the legitimate reason 
and permanent principle on which it is founded. It is 
the acknowledgment of the Christian saintliness and 
union of family life. The goodness, the holiness, the 
purity of a Christian fireside, of a Christian marriage, of 
a good death-bed, extends to all those who come within 
its reach. As we are all drawn nearer to each other by 
the natural bonds of affection, so we are drawn still 
nearer when these bonds of affection are cemented by 

1 See a powerful description of this mode of baptism in Lord Elgin's Life 
and Letters, ed. bj^ Theodore Walrond, p. 338. 

2 1 Cor. vii. 14. 



26 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

Christianity. Every gathering, therefore, for the chris- 
tening of a little child is truly a family gathering. It 
teaches us how closely we are members one of another. 
It teaches parents how deeply responsible they are for 
the growth of that little creature throughout its future 
education. It teaches brothers and sisters how by them 
is formed the atmosphere, good or bad, in which the soul 
of their little new-born brother or sister is trained to 
good or to evil. It teaches us the value of the purity of 
those domestic relations in which from childhood to old 
age all our best thoughts are fostered and encouraged. 
It also surmounts and avoids the difficulty which encom- 
passes Adult Baptism in any country or society already 
impregnated with Christian influences. If the New 
Testament has no exp.mple of Infant Baptism, neither 
has it any example of adult Christian Baptism ; that is, 
of the baptism of those who had been already born and 
bred Christians. The artificial formality of a Baptismal 
Service for those who in our time have grown up as 
Christians is happily precluded by the administration of 
the rite at the commencement of the natural life. 

But there is a further reason to be found in the char- 
acter of children. This is contained in the Gospel which 
is read in the Baptismal Service for infants throughout 
the Western Church. ^ In the early ages there probably 
were those who doubted whether children could be re- 
garded worthy to be dedicated to God or to Christ. The 
answer is very simple. If our Divine Master did not 
think them unfit to be taken in His arms and receive His 
own gracious blessing when He was actually on earth in 
bodily presence, we need not fear to ask His blessing 
upon them now. 

1 In the English Church it is Mark x. 13-16; in the Roman Church it is Matt. 
xix. 13-15. But in the Eastern Church the passages are still those that apply 
to Adult Baptism, Rom. vi. 3-12; Matt, xxviii. 16-20. 



Chap. I.] OF INFANTS. 27 

Infant Baptism is thus a recognition of the good which 
there is in every human soul. It declares that in every 
child of Adam, whilst there is much evil, there is more 
good; whilst there is much which needs to be purified 
and elevated, there is much also which in itself shows a 
capacity for purity and virtue. In those little children of 
Galilee, all unbaptized as they were, not yet even within 
the reach of a Christian family, Jesus Christ saw the 
likeness of the Kingdom of Heaven ; merely because 
they were little children, merely because they were inno- 
cent human beings. He saw in them the objects, not of 
divine malediction, but of divine benediction. Lord 
Palmerston was once severely attacked for having said 
" Children are born good." But he, in fact, only said 
what Chrysostom had said before him, and Chrysostom 
said only what in the Gospels had been already said of 
the natural state of the unbaptized Galilean children, 
" Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." The substitution 
of Infant Baptism for Adult Baptism, like the change 
from immersion to sprinkling, is thus a triumph of Chris- 
tian charity. It exemplifies at the first beginning of life 
that Divine Grace which hopes all things, believes all 
things, endures all things. In each such little child our 
Saviour saw, and we may see, the promise of a glorious 
future. In those little hands folded in unconscious re- 
pose, in those bright eyes first awakening to the outer 
world, in that soft forehead unfurrowed by the rufile of 
care or sin. He saw, and we may see, the undeveloped 
rudimental instruments of the labor, and intelligence, 
and energy of a whole life. And not only so — not only 
in hope, but in actual reality, does the blessing on little 
children, whether as expressed in the Gospel story, or as 
implied in Infant Baptism, acknowledge the excellency 
and the value of the childlike soul. Not once only in 
His life, but again and again. He held them up to His 



28 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

disciples, as the best corrective of the ambitions and pas- 
sions of mankind. He exhorted all men to follow their 
innocency, their unconsciousness, their guilelessness, their 
truthfulness, their purity. He saw in them the regener- 
ating, sanctifying element of every family, of every house- 
hold, of every nation. He saw, and we may see, in their 
natural, unaffected, simple, unconstrained acts and words 
the best antidote to the artificial, fantastic, exclusive 
spirit which beset the Pharisees of His own time, and 
must beset the Pharisees, whether of the religious or of 
the irreligious world, in all times. Infant Baptism thus 
is the standing testimony to the truth, the value, the eter- 
nal significance of what is called " natural religion," of 
what Butler calls the constitution of human nature. It 
is also in a more special sense still the glorification of 
children. It is the outward expression of their proper 
place in the Christian Church, and in the instincts of the 
civilized world. It teaches us how much we all have to 
learn from children, how much to enjoy, how much to 
imitate. It is the response to all that poetry of chil- 
dren which in our days has been specially consecrated 
by Wordsworth and by Keble.^ 

When we see what a child is — how helpless, how 
trusting, how hopeful — the most hardened of men must 
be softened by its presence, and feel the reverence due to 
its tender conscience as to its tender limbs. When we 
remember that before their innocent faces the demons of 
selfishness, and impurity, and worldliness, and unchari- 
tableness are put to flight ; when we hope that for their 

1 It is instructive to observe that whilst the sentiments of the two poets on the 
natural attractiveness of children are identical, Keble often endeavors to force 
it into a connection with Baptism which to Wordsworth is almost unknown. 
It is said that Wordsworth, once reading with admiration a well-known poem 
in the Christian Year, stumbled at the opening lines, "Where is it mothers 
learn their love?" (to which the answer is "the Font.") "ISI"o, no " said the 
old poet, " it is from their own maternal hearts." 



Chap. I.] OF INFANTS. 29 

innocent souls there is a place in a better world, though 
they are ignorant of those theological problems which 
rend their elders asunder, this may possibly teach us that 
it is not " before all things necessary " to know the dif- 
ferences which divide the Churches of the East or West, 
or the Churches of the North or South. When we think 
of the sweet repose of a child as it lies in the arms of its 
nurse, or its pastor at the font, it may recall to us the 
true attitude of humble trust and confidence which most 
befits the human soul, whether of saint or philosopher. 
" Like as a weaned child on its mother's breast, my soul 
is even as a weaned child." When we meditate on the 
imperfect knowledge of a child, it is the best picture to 
us of our imperfect knowledge in this mortal state. " I 
am but as a little child," said Sir Isaac Newton, '' pick- 
ing up pebbles on the shore of the vast ocean of truth." 
"When I was a child — when I was an infant," said St. 
Paul, " I spake as an ' infant,' I thought as an ' infant ; ' 
but when I became a man, the thoughts and the spirit 
of an ' infant ' were done away." This thought is the 
pledge of a perpetual progress. The baptism of an in- 
fant, as the birth of an infant, would be nothing were it 
not that it includes within it the hope and the assurance 
of all that is to follow after. In those feeble cries, in 
those unconscious movements, there is the first stirring of 
the giant within ; the first dawn of that reasonable soul 
which will never die ; the first budding of 

The seminal form which in the deeps 
Of that little chaos sleeps. 

The investment of this first beginning with a religious 
and solemn character teaches us that, as we must grow 
from infancy to manhood, so also we must grow from the 
infancy, the limited perceptions, the narrow faith, the 
stunted hope, the imperfect knowledge, the straitened 
affections of the infancy of this mortal state to the full- 



30 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

grown manhood of our immortal life. It suggests that 
we have to pass from the momentary baptism of uncon- 
scious infants through the transforming baptism of Fire 
and the Spirit — that is, of Experience and of Character 
— which is wrought out through the many vicissitudes of 
life and the great change of death. 

4. There are many other changes consequent on the 
substitution of Infant for Adult Baptism. The whole 
institution of sponsors is of a later date. In the early 
centuries the answers as a general rule were made for 
the child by the parents. In later times the practice of 
transferring to a child the dramatic form which had been 
originally used for grown-up converts led to the system 
of sponsors. And the pursuance of the allegory of a sec- 
ond birth was pushed into the further detail of placing 
the sponsors in the place of parents, and thus creating a 
new series of affinities. In the Roman and the Eastern 
Church, the " gossips " ^ cannot intermarry with each 
other; and in the Middle Ages even the touch of the 
baptized infant was believed to unite in this spiritual kin- 
dred. The modern system of sponsors, whether with 
or without these elaborate inquiries, doubtless has some 
social and moral advantages ; but it is impossible to over- 
look the difficulties which so complex an arrangement 
awakens in the minds of the uneducated, and it was with 
the view of surmounting these entanglements of the con- 
science and understanding that the late Royal Commis- 
sioners on the Rubrics on one occasion recommended the 
permission to hold the whole of that part of the Baptis- 
mal Service as optional. 

The connection of the Christian name with Baptism is 
also a result of the change. Properly speaking, the name 

1 This word, as is well-known, expresses " the God sib " — the religious re- 
lationship — of the several parties, and has acquired its secondary sense from 
the tittle-tattle of christenings. 



Chap. I.] CHANGES IN THE CEKEMONY. 31 

is not given in Baptism, but, having been already given, 
it is announced in Baptism as the name by which the in- 
dividuaUty and personahty of the baptized person is for 
the first time publicly recognized in the Christian assem- 
bly. In the case of the Adult Baptism of the early ages 
this was obvious. Flavins Constantinus had always been 
Flavins Constantinus, and Aurelius Augustinus always 
Aurelius Augustinus. It was only when the time of the 
name-giving and of the baptism, as in the case of infants, 
so nearly coincided, that the two came to be confounded. 

Confirmation, which once formed a part of Baptism, has 
been separated from it, and turned into a new ordinance, 
which in the Roman Catholic Church has been made into 
another sacrament. Along with this disruption between 
Confirmation and Baptism has taken place another 
change, — the absolute prohibition throughout the West- 
ern Church of Infant Communion, which in the early 
Church was, as it still is in the East, the inseparable ac- 
companiment of Infant Baptism. In early ages, as in the 
Eastern Church, Confirmation was the title given to the 
unction which accompanied Baptism ; in the later Roman 
Church,^ and in most Protestant Churches, it is the title 
given to the open adoption of the Christian faith and life 
in mature years. 

Another curious series of changes has taken place in 
regard to the persons who administered Baptism. In 
the early centuries it was only the Bishop, and hence 
probably has originated the retention by the Episcopal 
order of that part of the old Baptism which, as we have 
just said, is now known by the name of Confirmation. 
As the Episcopate became more separate from the Pres- 

1 In the Roman Catholic Church, as well as in the Church of Scotland, includ- 
ing the Episcopal Church in Charles the Second's time (see the proceedings of 
the Synod of Dunblane), the preparation for Confirmation is virtually superseded 
by the preparation for the first communion, which in the Roman Church pre- 
cedes Confirmation, and in the Scottish Church has taken its place. 



32 BAPTISM. [Chap. I. 

byterate, as the belief in the paramount necessity of Bap- 
tism became stronger, as the population of Christendom 
increased, the right was extended to Presbyters, then to 
Deacons, and at last to laymen, and, in defiance of all 
early usage, to women. And thus it has hapj)ened by 
one of those curious introversions of sentiment which are 
so instructive in ecclesiastical history, that whilst in 
Protestant Churches which lay least stress on the out- 
ward rite, the administration is virtually confined to the 
clergy, in the Roman Catholic Church, which lays most 
stress on the rite, the administration is extended to the 
laity and to the female sex. This is a formidable breach 
in the usual theories concerning the indispensable neces- 
sity of the clerical order for the administration of the 
sacramental rites, and it is difficult to justify the dif- 
ference in principle which in the Roman Church has 
rendered the practice with regard to the sacrament of 
Baptism so exceedingly lax, with regard to the sacrament 
of the Eucharist so exceedingly rigid. 

Such are some of the general reflections suggested by 
the revolutions through which the oldest ordinance of the 
Church has come down to our day. They may possibly 
make that ordinance more intelligible both to those who 
adopt and to those who have not adopted it. They may 
also serve to illustrate the transformation both of letter 
and spirit through which all sacred ordinances which re- 
tain any portion of their original vitality must pass. 



CHAPTER 11. 

THE EUCHARIST. 

It is proposed to give an account of the primitive in- 
stitution of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper — un- 
questionably the greatest religious ordinance of the world, 
whether as regards its almost universal adoption in the 
civilized world, or the passions which it has enkindled, 
or the opposition which it has evoked. 

Unlike many of the records of the Gospel story, which 
from the variety and contradiction of the narratives, and 
from the question as to the date and authorship of the 
Gospels, are involved in difficulty, the narrative of the 
Institution of the Lord's Supper is preserved to us on 
the whole with singular uniformity in the three first 
Gospels, and more than this, it is preserved to us almost 
in the same form in St. Paul's First Epistle to the Co- 
rinthians, and in that case is one of the few writings of 
the New Testament of which the authority has never 
been questioned at all, and which belongs to a date 
long anterior to any of the Gospels, and which is there- 
fore at once the earliest and the most authentic of any 
part of the Gospel History. What St. Paul tells us 
about the Last Supper is a fragment of the Gospel His- 
tory which all critics and scholars will at once admit. 
" The Supper was universally instituted or founded by 
Jesus." 1 There is nothing startling, nothing difficult 
to accept in the account — no miraculous portents, no 
doctrine difficult of apprehension — but it contains many 

1 Strauss's Life of Jesus, 
3 



34 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. II. 

of the best characteristics of Our Lord's discourses — His 
deep affection to His disciples — His parabolical mode 
of expression — His desire to be remembered after He 
was gone — His mixture of joyous festivity with serious 
earnestness. It contains also by implication the story 
of His arrival in Jerusalem, of His betrayal, and of His 
death. We have enough in this to build upon. No 
one doubts it. Every one may construct from it a 
Christianity sufficient for his belief and for his con- 
duct. 

By dwelling on the original form we pass out of the 
midst of modern controversy to a better, simpler, higher 
atmosphere. It is said that a great genius in France,^ 
when on the point of receiving a first communion in the 
years which followed the first Revolution, was over- 
whelmed by the distracting and perplexing thoughts 
suggested by all the doubts which raged on the subject, 
but was restored to calm by fixing the mind on the one 
original scene from which the Christian Eucharist has 
sprung. Let us do the same. Let us go back to that 
one occasion, out of which, all are agreed, both its unity 
and its differences arose. 

It was not, as with us, in the early morning or at 
noonday, but in the evening, shortly after sunset — not 
on the first day of the week, nor the seventh, 
but on the fifth, or Thursday, that the Master 
and His disciples met together. The remembrance of the 
day of the week has now entirely perished except in Pas- 
sion Week. It was revived in the time of Calvin, who 
proposed in recollection of it to have the chief Christian 
festival and day of rest transferred on this account from 
Sunday to Thursday. But this was never carried out, 
and the day now remains unremembered. The remem- 
brance still lingers in the name when we call it a supper 

1 Memoirs of George Sand. 



Chap. II.] ITS ORIGINAL CHARACTER. 35 

— the Lord's Supper — and still more in Germany, the 
Holy Evening Meal. For such it was. It was the even- 
ing feast, of which every Jewish household partook on 
the night, as it might be, before or after the Passover. 
They were collected together, the Master and His twelve 
disciples, in one of the large upper rooms above the open 
court of the inn or caravanserai to which they had been 
guided. The couches or mats were spread round the 
room, as in all Eastern houses ; and on those the guests 
lay reclined, three on each couch, according to the cus- 
tom derived from the universal usage of the Greek or 
Roman world. The ancient Jewish usage of eating the 
Passover standing had given way, and a symbolical 
meaning was given to what was in fact a more social 
fashion, that they might lie then like kings, with the 
ease becoming free men.^ 

There they lay, the Lord in the midst, next to the be- 
loved disciple, and next to him the eldest, Peter. Of the 
position of the others we know nothing. There r^^g ^jg. 
was placed on the table in front of the guests, °^^'^*^- 
one, two, perhaps four cups, or rather bowls. There is at 
Genoa a bowl which professes to be the original chalice 

— a mere fancy, no doubt — but probably representing 
the original shape. This bowl was filled with wine 
mixed up with water. The wine of old times was always 
mixed with water. No one ever thought of taking it 
without, just as now no one would think of taking treacle 
or vinegar without water. Beside the cup v/as one or 
more of the large thin Passover cakes of unleavened 
bread, such as may still at the Paschal season be seen in 
all Jewish houses. It is this of which the outward form 
has been preserved in the thin round wafer which is used 
in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches. It was 
the recollection of the unleavened bread of the Israelites 

1 Maimonides, PesacJi, 10. 1 ; Farrar, Life of Christ, ii. 278. 



36 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. II. 

when tliey left Egypt. As the wine was mixed with 
water, so the bread was probably served up with fish. 
The two always went together. We see examples of it 
in the earlier meals in the Gospel, and so doubtless it 
was in this last. Close beside this cake was another rec- 
ollection of the Passover — a thick sop, which was sup- 
posed to be like the Egyptian clay, and in which the 
fragments of the Paschal cake were dipped. Round this 
table, leaning on each other's breasts, reclining on those 
couches, were the twelve disciples and their Master. 
From mouth to mouth passed to and fro the eager in- 
quiry, and the startled look when they heard that one of 
them should betray Him.^ Across the table and from 
side to side were shot the earnest questions from Peter, 
from Jude, from Thomas, from Philip. In each face 
might have been traced the character of each — receiv- 
ing a different impression from what he saw and heard — 
and in the midst of all this the majestic sorrowful coun- 
tenance of the Master of the Feast, as He drew towards 
him the several cups and the thin transparent cake, and 
pronounced over each the Jewish blessing with those few 
words which have become immortal. 

Let us see then from hence the details of the first in- 
stitution of the ordinance. 

1. It was the ancient Jewish paschal meal. He 
showed by thus using it that He did not mean to part 
the new from the old. He intended that there 
tion with should be this connection, however slight, with 
the ancient Israelite nation. The blessing 
which He pronounced on the cup and the bread was 
taken from the blessing which the Jewish householder 

1 In this respect the picture of the Last Supper by Leonardo da Yinci gives a 
true impression. The moment represented is that in which, as a bombshell, the 
declaration that one of them should betray Him has fallen among the Apostles. 
It is not a picture of the Last Supper, so much as the expression of the various 
emotions called forth by that announcement. 



Chap. II.] THE ORIGINAL. 37 

pronounced on them. The " hymn " which they sang 
was the long chant from the 113th to the 118th Psahn, 
celebrating the Exodus. The moon which shone into 
that upper room, and which shines over our Easter night, 
is the successor of the moon which lighted up the night 
to be ever remembered when Israel came out of Egypt.^ 
The most Christian of all Christian ordinances is thus 
the most Jewish. Whitsunday has hardly any Jewish 
recollections, Christmas and Good Friday none. But 
Easter and the Lord's Supper are the Passover in an- 
other form, and the link which binds the old and the 
new together is the same sense of deliverance. The 
birthday of the Jewish Religion was the day of the birth 
of a free people. The birthday of the Christian Religion 
was no less the day of the birth of the freedom of the 
human race, of the human conscience, of the human soul. 
"This year," so says the Jewish service, "we are ser- 
vants here ; next year we hope to be freemen in the land 
of Israel." This year Christendom may be a slave to its 
prejudices and its passsions ; next year it may hope to be 
free in the land of goodness. 

2. But out of this supper He chose those elements 
which were most simple and most enduring. He left al- 
together out of notice the paschal lamb and the selection of 
bitter herbs. He did not think it necessary *^l^™sai 
to accept all or reject all of what He found. ^i^"^«°*^- 
Here as elsewhere He used the best of what came before 
Him. He exercised His free right of choice. When He 
took into His hands — " His holy and venerable hands," 
as the old Liturgies express it — the paschal bread and 
the paschal wine, it was the selection of them from the 
rest of the Jewish ceremony, as He selected His doctrine 

1 The hymn which Sir Walter Scott has put into the mouth of a Jewess, 
"When Israel forth from bondage came," is also one of the veiy best hymns 
of Christians. 



38 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. II. 

from the rest of tlie Jewish books and Jewish teaching. 
He said nothing of the water which was mixed with the 
wine. That was a mere passing custom which would 
change with time and fashion. He said nothing of the 
form or materials of the bread. It was unleavened, it 
was round, it was thin, it was a cake rather than a loaf. 
But He said nothing of all these things, nothing of the 
accompanying fish. All those questions which have 
arisen as to the proportions in which the materials should 
be mixed were far, very far behind Him, or far, very far 
beyond Him. He took the bread and wine as He found 
them ; He fixed on the bread and wine as representing 
those two sustaining elements which are found almost 
everywhere — bread that strengtheneth man's heart, 
wine that maketh glad the heart of man. These were the 
fruits of the earth which He blessed, for which He gave 
thanks, to indicate the gratitude of man for these simple 
gifts. As in His teaching He had chosen the most 
homely images of the shepherd, the sower, the guest, the 
traveller, so in His worship He chose the most homely 
elements of food. How great is the contrast with the 
sacred emblems of other religions — the bulls, the goats, 
the white horses, the jewels, the robes. It is the ser- 
vants, the inferiors, the precursors, who need these ap- 
pendages to mark them. The True Master is known by 
the simplicity of His appearance, the plainness of His 
manners and His dress. 

3. He chose also this particular occasion. His parting 
supper. His farewell meal, as the foundation of His most 
Parting sacrcd ordinance, to show us that here, as else- 
^^^^' where. His religion was to be part of our com- 

mon life, not separated from it — that the human affec- 
tions of friend for friend, the sorrow of parting, the joy 
of meeting again, are the very bonds by which union and 
sympathy are formed. The very name of supper re- 



Chap. IL] PARTING MEAL. 39 

minds us that our holiest religious ordinance sprung 
from a festive meal, amidst eating and drinking, amidst 
weeping and rejoicing, amidst question and answer. It 
proves that amongst the means of Christian edification, 
not the least are those interchanges of hospitality where 
man talks freely with man, friend with friend, guest with 
guest. Many such a meal has ere this worked the blessed 
work of even a Christian sacrament. How wise is that 
advice given by a great humorist of our age,^ not less 
wise than he was witty, that bishops should compose the 
differences of their clergy not by rebukes, but by meet- 
ing at the same social table. How many a quarrel, how 
many a heart-burning, how many a false estrangement, 
might in like manner be reconciled and done away with 
by the Sacred Supper, which is the prototype and ideal 
of all suppers, of every chief meal of the day every- 
where. " The supper," says Luther, " which Christ held 
with His disciples when He gave them His farewell, must 
have been full of friendly heart-intercourse ; for Christ 
spoke just as tenderly and cordially to them as a father 
to his dear little children when he is obliged to part from 
them. He made the best of their infirmities and had pa- 
tience with them, although all the while they were so 
slow to understand, and still lisped like babes. Yet that 
must indeed have been choice friendly and delightful con- 
verse when Philip said, ' Show us the way,' and Thomas 
said, ' We know not the way,' and Peter, ' I will go 
with thee to prison and to death.' It was simple, quiet 
table-talk ; every one opening his heart, and showing 
his thoughts freely and frankly, and without restraint. 
Never since the world began was there a more delightful 
meal than that." It is the likeness, the model, of all 
serious conversation, of all family intercourse, of all social 
reciprocity. 

1 Sydney Smith. 



40 THE EUCHAEIST. [Chap. H. 

4. And lastly, He gave all these tilings a new mean- 
ing. Here, as elsewhere, what He touched He viyified, 
Its future what He used He transformed and transfigured, 
meaning. j^. ^-^^gj^^ have been otherwise. We might have 
inherited only the Paschal feast — the blessing of the 
natural gifts — the social meal. But He did more than 
this. He tells them that it is Himself who is to live over 
again in their thoughts every time they break that bread 
and drink that wine. What those common earthly sus- 
tenances are to their bodies, that His Spirit must be to 
their souls. This was what the Apostles needed at that 
moment of depression. They felt that He was going 
to leave them ; He made them feel that He would still 
be with them. It was to be a memorial of His death, 
but it was also to be a pledge of His life. Five ver- 
sions have been handed down to us of the words which 
He used — one by St. Matthew, one by St. Mark, one 
by St. Luke, one by St. Paul, a fifth is found in the 
oldest Liturgical forms of the early Church, differing 
from the others. In the Fourth Gospel, whilst the 
words are not given at all, their substance extends 
through the whole of that parting discourse which is in 
their account a substitute for them. This variety of nar- 
ratives, whilst it shows the slight value which those 
early times attached to the letter, shows also the essen- 
tial spirit of the whole transaction. " This is my Body." 
" This is my Blood." '' This is the New Testament." "I 
am the vine." " I am the way, the truth, and the life." 
" It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not 
away the Comforter will not come to you." What the 
Apostles are imagined to have felt as they heard those 
words is represented by their questions and answers. In 
various forms they longed to know whither He was going, 
— they asked Him to show them the Father, — they 
asked that He would manifest Himself to them and not 



Chap. II.] ITS FUTURE MEANING. 41 

to the world. But, one and all, amidst all their failings, 
they were cheered and strengthened. They felt that they 
had not parted with Him forever. The very manner in 
which He broke the bread was enough to bring Him back 
to their recollections. They recognized Him by it at 
Emmaus and on the shores of Gennesareth. It was not 
only as they had seen Him at the last supper, but at 
those earlier feasts where He had blessed and broken the 
bread and distributed the fishes on the hills of Galilee. 
The Last Supper was in fact a continuation of those 
meals.^ It belonged to the future side of His life ; that 
is, as He Himself had explained to them, not the flesh, 
which profited nothing, but the words which were His 
spirit and His life. Not only these expressions, but many 
others yet stronger, repeat over and over the truth which 
that last supper taught. Christ's own inmost self would 
remain always the life and soul of the Church and of the 
world. " Wherever two or three are gathered in my 
name, there am I in the midst of you." "Inasmuch as 
you did it to the least of these my brethren you did it 
to me." " Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of 
the world." 

It is also the glorification of the power of Memory. 
Each one may think of those who are gone, and whose 
bequests we still desire to carry on. Each one, as at the 
Lord's Table we think of the departed, and think also of 
any friendless one to be comforted, of any institution 
needing help, of any suffering one to be cheered, may 
hear the voice, whatsoever it may be, nearest and dear- 
est, or highest and holiest, in the other world, saying, 
" This do^ in remembrance of Me.'''' Remembrance — 
recalling of the past — is the moral, mental, spiritual 
means by which "the Last Supper" becomes "the 
Lord's Supper." 

They who believe in the singular mercy and compas- 

1 Renan, Vie de Jesus, 302, 303. 



42 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap, n.- 

sion shown in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, or in the 
toleration and justice due to those who are of another 
religion, as in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, they, 
whether they be Christian in name or not, whether they 
have or have not partaken of the sacrament, have thus 
received Christ, because they have received that which 
was the essence of Christ, His spirit of mercy and toler- 
ation. 

It is the simple fact, which no one of whatever creed 
disputes, that Christ has been, and is still, the Soul of 
Christendom, and to His life we go back to recover our 
ideal of what Christianity is — that wherever we meet 
any good thought or deed, any suffering or want to be re- 
lieved in any part of the world, there we touch a hand 
that is vanished — there we hear a voice that is silent. 
It is the hand, it is the voice, of our Redeemer. Other 
teachers, other founders of religions, have cared that 
their names should be honored and remembered. He 
cared not for this, if only Himself, His spirit, His works, 
survived — if to the poor, the suffering, the good every- 
where, were paid the tenderness, the honor, due to Him. 
In their happiness He is blessed, in their honor He is 
honored, and in their reception He is received. It is 
the last triumph of Divine unselfishness, and it is its last 
and greatest reward. For thus He lives again in His 
members and they live in Him. Even those who have 
most questioned and most doubted acknowledge that 
" He is a thousand times more living, a thousand times 
more loved, than He was in his short passage through 
life, that He presides still day by day over the destiny of 
the world. He started us on a new direction, and in 
that direction we still move." ^ 

It used to be said in the wars between the Moors and 
the Spaniards that a perfect character would be the man 

1 Renan, Vie de Jesus, p. 421. 



Chap. II.] ITS FUTURE MEANING. 43 

who had the virtues of the Mussulman and the creed of 
the Christian. But this is exactly reversing our Lord's 
doctrine. If the virtues of the Arabs were greater than 
the virtues of the Spaniards, then, whether they ac- 
cepted Christ in word or not, it was they who were the 
true believers, and it was the Christians who were the 
infidels. 

When the Norman bishops asked Anselm whether 
Alfege, who was killed by the Danes at Greenwich, 
could be called a martyr, because he died not on behalf 
of the faith of Christ, but only to prevent the levying of 
an unjust tax, Anselm answered : " He was a martyr, 
because he died for justice ; justice is the essence of 
Christ, even although His name is not mentioned." The 
Norman prelates, so far as their complaint went, were 
unbelievers in the true nature of Christ. Anselm was a 
profound behever, just as Alfege was an illustrious mar- 
tyr. When Bishop Pearson in his work on the Creed 
vindicates the Divinity of Christ without the slightest 
mention of any of those moral qualities by which He has 
bowed down the world before Him, his grasp on the 
doctrine is far feebler than that of Rousseau or Mill, who 
have seized the very attributes which constitute the mar- 
row and essence of His nature. When Commander Good- 
enough, on one of the most edifying, the most inspiring, 
death-beds which can be imagined, spoke in the most he- 
roic and saintly accents to his sailors and friends, there 
were pious souls who were deeply perplexed because he 
had not mentioned the name of Jesus. It was they who 
for the moment were faithless, as it was he who was the 
true believer, although, except in a language they did 
not understand, he had not spoken expressly of the Sav- 
iour with whose Spirit he was so deeply penetrated. 

Such are some of the ways in which the life of Christ 
is still lived on the earth. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE EUCHAEIST IN THE EAELY CHUECH. 

We now pass from the original institution to its con- 
tinuance in the Apostolic age and in the two centuries 
that followed. 

The change had already begun. The Paschal ele- 
ments had dropped out. The lamb, the bitter herbs, the 
sop, the hymn, had all disappeared ; the idea of the last 
parting of friends had also vanished. Three — possibly 
four — examples of it are given in the first century. In 
the Acts the believers at Jerusalem are described as par- 
taking of a daily meal, in their private houses, as part of 
their religious devotions.^ At Corinth the same custom 
can still be traced as part of a meal.^ At Troas, on the 
Apostle's last journey, it is again indicated in connection 
with the first distinct notice of the religious observance 
of the first day of the week.^ On the voyage to Rome 
it can be discerned, though more doubtfully, in the 
midst of a common meal.^ One characteristic these ac- 
counts possess in common. The earthly and the heav- 
enly, the social and the religious, aspect of life were 
not yet divided asunder. The meal and the sacrament 
blended thus together were the complete realization in 
outward form of the Apostle's words, — perhaps, in fact, 
suggested by it, — " Whether ye eat or drink, or whatso- 
ever ye do, do all to the glory of God ; " " Whatsoever 
ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him." 

1 Acts ii. 42. 2 1 Cor. xi. 20. s Acts xx. 7. * Acts xxvii. 35. 



Chap. III.] ITS FESTIVE CHARACTER. 46 

Perhaps the nearest likeness now existing to the union 
of social intercourse with religious worship is to be found 
in the services of the Church which of all others has been 
least changed in form, however much it may have altered 
in spirit, from ancient times — the services of the Coptic or 
Egyptian Church of Alexandria. There is, indeed, even 
less of a supper in the Coptic Eucharist than there is in 
that of the Western Churches ; but there is more of prim- 
itive freedom and of innocent enjoyment, the worshippers 
coming to meet each other and talk to each other, to be 
like a family gathering, than is ever seen in any European 
Church. 

But even in early times, even in the Apostolical age, the 
diflficulties of bringing an ideal and an actual life together 
made themselves felt. As the faults of Ananias and 
Sapphira profaned and made impossible a community of 
property in Jerusalem, so the excesses and disorders of 
the Corinthian Christians profaned and made impossible 
a continuance of the primitive celebration of the Eucha- 
rist. The community of property had vanished, and so 
had the community of the sacrament. The time was 
coming when the secular and the spiritual were disen- 
tangled one from the other ; the simplicity and the glad- 
ness of the primitive communion could no longer be con- 
tinued, and therefore the form is altered to ease the spirit. 
This we shall endeavor to unravel in detail. 

I. The festive character of the meal, which was its 
predominant character, in the first age, lasted for some 
time after the change of its outward detail be- rs festive 
gan to take effect. In some respects it had <=^'^^^«^^^- 
been enhanced and emphasized by its combination with 
Gentile usages. It was like the dinner of a club, or, as 
the Greeks termed it, an eranus — a fraternity. 

This was one of the peculiar experiments of Greek 
social life. The clubs — sometimes called erani^ some- 



46 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

times thiasi — of Athens, of Rhodes, and of the ^gean 
isles were savings banks, insurance offices, mutual help 
societies. They had their devices engraven on tablets. 
They had their common festive meals — usually in gar- 
dens, round an altar with sacrifices. They were the 
centres of whatever sentiments of piety, charity, and re- 
ligious morality lingered in Greek society.^ " A com- 
mon meal is the most natural and universal way of ex- 
pressing, maintaining, and as it were notifying relations 
of kinship. The spirit of antiquity regarded the meals 
of human beings as having the nature of sacred things." 
If, therefore, it sounds degrading to compare or connect 
the Christian Communion to a club dinner, it is owing 
to the fact that the moderns connect less dignified asso- 
ciations with meals than the ancients did, and that most 
clubs have a far less obvious dignity than the first Chris- 
tian society When men of different degrees or 

nations received together as from the hand of God this 
simple repast, they were reminded in the most forcible 
manner of their common human wants and their com- 
mon character of pensioners on the bounty of the Uni- 
versal Father.2 

In the Communion of the first and second centuries 
this character of the Grecian club was evident in its very 
outset, for each brought, as to the common meal, his own 
contribution in his basket, each helped himself from the 
common table.^ So we see them in the catacombs, and 
in a bas-relief in S. Ambrogio at Milan, sitting round a 
semicircular table, men and women together, which so far 
was an infringement on the Greek custom, where the 
sexes were kept apart. More than once a woman pre- 
sides. Two maidens appear ; we can hardly tell whether 

1 See the authorities quoted in Eenan, Les Apotres, pp. 352, 353. 

2 Ecce Homo, pp. 173, 174. 

8 This was changed before Tertullian's time {De Corona, 2, 3). 



Chap. III.] ITS FESTIVE CHARAGTEK. 47 

they are real or allegorical, but if allegorical they would 
not have been introduced unless they might have been 
real. "Irene, da calida — Agape, misce mi"^ (Peace, 
give me the hot water — Love, mix it for me). It was 
also, in connection with the dead, a likeness of the fu- 
neral feast, such as existed in pagan households, the fam- 
ily meeting annually to a repast, in the celloe memorice^ 
with couches, coverlets, and dresses provided.^ 

This combination of a repast and a religious rite is 
already familiar by the practice of the religious world 
amongst the Jews. There were the meals of the priests, 
who, coming up from their homes in the country for the 
Temple service, lived together like fellows of a college, 
and dined at a common table, with the strictness of eti- 
quette which became their position, always washing be- 
fore sitting down, blessing the bread and wine, and utter- 
ing thanks after the close. These common meals were 
usually on festivals or Sabbaths.^ The schools of the 
Pharisees carried out the imitation of this in their ordi- 
nary life, adding the same care to preserve the likeness 
of a meal in the Temple. In order to avoid breaking the 
Sabbath by going or carrying provisions more than 2,000 
cubits on the Sabbath, they invented a plan of deposit- 
ing their provisions at intervals of 2,000 cubits, so as to 
create imaginary houses, from each of which they could 
lawfully go. The Essenes always took their meals in 
common with the same object.* 

Gradually the repast was parted from the religious act. 
The repast became more and more secular, the religious 
act more and more sacred. Already in the Apostolic 
age the Apostle's stern rebuke had commenced the sepa- 
ration. From century to century the breach widened. 

1 Eenan, St. Paul, 266. 

2 Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, "Cellse Memorise," p. 387. 
8 Derenbourg, Palestine, 142-401 ; Geiger, Urschrift, 123. 

4 Ibid. 142. 



48 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. ni. 

The two remained for a time together, but distinct, the 
meal immediately preceding or succeeding the sacrament. 
Then the ministers alone, instead of the congregation, 
took the charge of distributing the elements. Then by 
the second century the daily administration ceased, and 
was confined to Sundays and festivals. Then the meal 
came to be known by the distinct name of agape. Even 
the Apostolical description of " the Lord's Supper " was 
regarded as belonging to a meal, altogether distinct from 
the sacrament. Finally the meal itself fell under sus- 
picion. Angastine and Ambrose condemned the thing 
itself, as the Apostle had condemned its excesses, and in 
the fifth century.^ that which had been the original form 
of the Eucharist was forbidden as profane by the coun- 
cils of Carthage and Laodicea. It was the parallel to 
the gradual extinction of the bath in baptism.^ 

But of this social, festive characteristic of the Eucha- 
ristic meal many vestiges long continued, and some con- 
tinue still. 

1. The name of the Lord's Supper was too closely 
connected with the original institution to be allowed 
altogether to perish. To this we will return for another 
reason presently. But even the other names of the ordi- 
nance have reference to the social gatherings. The word 
in the Eastern Church is either o-wa£^is (synaxis), a com- 
ing together, or (as in Russian) ohedniac, a feast. Col- 
lecta is in the Latin Church a translation of synaxis, and 
"collect" for the prayer used in the Communion Ser- 
vice is probably derived from the whole service. It was 

1 Eenan's St. Paul, 262 ; Bingham's Antiquities, xv. 7. 

2 An exactly analogous process may be seen in the usage of the Church of 
Scotland. Originally there was no religious service at a Scottish funeral, only 
a meal with a grace at the dead man's house. The meal has gradually dwindled 
away to a glass of wine and a few morsels of biscuit ; the grace has swelled into 
a chapter, a prayer, a blessing, and contains the germ of the whole funeral ser- 
vice of the Chiirch of England. 



Chap. III.] ITS FESTIVE CHARACTER. 49 

*' oratio ad collectam ; " then by way of abbreviation the 
prayer itself came to be called " colleety Communion is 
a word which conveys the same import. It \s joint par- 
ticipation. The word mass or missa is often derived 
from the accidental phrase at the end of the service, 
^'' Ita missa^ est^^^ as if the heathen sacrifices had been 
called '''• Ilicety But it is at least an ingenious explana- 
tion that it is a phrase taken from the food placed on the 
table — missus ^ — or possibly from the table itself — 
mensa — and thence perpetuating itself in the old Eng- 
lish word " mess of pottage," '' soldier's 7ness " ^ — and in 
the solemn words for feasts, as Chvistmas for the Feast 
of the Nativity, Michaelmas for the Feast of St. Michael, 
and the like. In that case " the mass " would be an ex- 
ample of a word which has come to convey an absolutely 
different, if not an exactly opposite, impression from that 
which it originally expressed. 

2. Besides the name there are fragments of the ancient 
usage preserved in various churches. 

At Milan an old man and an old woman "* bring up to 
the altar the pitcher and the loaves, as representing the 
ancient gifts of the church. 

In England the sacred elements are provided not by 
the minister, but by the parish. 

In the East always, and in the West occasionally, there 
is the distribution amongst the congregation of the bread, 
from which the consecrated food is taken under the name 
of "eulogia" — "blessed bread." Eulogia is in fact 
another name for Eucharistia. 

There lingered in the fifth century the practice of in- 
voking the name of Christ whenever they drank,^ and 

1 The first certain use of the word is in Ambrose (Sermon 34). 

2 Missus is a "course" (Capitolinus in Fertinax, c. 12 ; Lampridius in Ela- 
gahalus, c. 30), as in the French mets, entremets. 

8 Crabb Robinson, in Archceulogia, xxvi. 242-53. 

4 Bona, Her. Lit. I 10. 6 Qreg. Naz. Eist. iv. 84; Sozomen, Eist. i. 17. 

12 



50 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

Gregory of Tours describes the act of eating and drink- 
ing together as a kind of sacred pledge or benediction.^ 

The order in the Church of England and in the Roman 
basilicas is that the priest is not to communicate alone. 

The practice in the Eastern and Roman Catholic 
Church of the priest communicating daily is a relic of the 
time when it was a daily event. It had been gradually 
restricted to the first day of the week, but traces of its 
continuance on other days are never altogether absent. 
It is now continued partly as a form, partly perhaps from 
a sense of its necessity. But the practice has its root in 
the original intention of its being the daily meal.^ 

11. Another part of the original idea, both as derived 
from the first institution and also from this festive so- 
its evening ^^^^ cliaractcr, was that it was an evening meal. 
character. g^^^j^ ^^^ evidently the case at Corinth and 
at Troas. 

This also is still preserved in its name, "Supper," SetTr- 
vov, Coena^ la Sainte Cene^ Ahendmahl. The t^lirvov (sup- 
per) of the Greeks was especially contrasted with the 
apiarov (dinner, lunch), or midday meal, as being in the 
evening, usually after sunset, corresponding to the Ho- 
meric Sopwvov. The coeiia of the Romans was not quite so 
late, but was certainly in the afternoon. The word " sup- 
per " in English has never had any other meaning. Of 
this usage, one trace is the use of candles, lighted or un- 
lighted. Partly it may have originated in the necessity of 
iUuminating the darkness of the catacombs, but probably 
its chief origin is their introduction at the evening Eucha- 
rist. The practice of the nightly Communion lingered 
till the fifth century in the neighborhood of Alexandria,^ 
and in the Thebaid, and in North Africa on Maundy 

1 Hist. vi. 5, viii. 2. 

2 This is proved from the passages cited in Freema.n^ s. Pinncijyhs of Divine 
Service, i. 180-90, of which the object is to show the reverse. 

3 Cyprian, Ep. 63; Socrates, v. 22; Sozomen, iv. 22; Augustine, Ep. 118. 



Chap. III.] THE POSTURE. 51 

Thursday, but as a general rule it was changed in the sec- 
ond century to an early hour in the morning,^ perhaps to 
avoid possible scandals — and thus what had been an ac- 
cidental deviation from the original intention has become 
a sacred regulation, which by some Christians is regarded 
as absolutely inviolable.^ 

III. The posture of the guests at the sacred meal must 
have been kneeling, standing, sitting, or recumbent. Of 
these four positions no single Church practices 
that which certainly was the original one. It 
is quite certain that at the original institution, the couches 
or divans were spread round the upper chamber, as in all 
Eastern — it may be said, in all Roman houses ; and on 
these the guests lay reclined, three on each couch. This 
posture, which probably continued throughout the Apos- 
tolic age, is now observed nowhere.^ Even the famous 
pictures which bring it before us have almost all shrunk 
from the ancient reahty. They dare not be so bold as 
the truth. One painter only — Poussin — has ventured 
to delineate the event as it actually occurred.^ 

The next posture is sitting, and is the nearest approach 
in spirit, though not in form, to the original practice of 
reclining. It has since disappeared everywhere with 
two exceptions. The Presbyterian Churches receive the 
Communion sitting, by way of return to the old practice. 
The Pope for many centuries also received it sitting, 
probably by way of direct continuation from ancient 

1 Plin. Ep. X. 97; Const. Apost. ii. 39 ; Tertullian, De Fuga in Pers. 14 ; 
De Cor. 3 ; 3Iinutius Felix, 8. There were still nocturnal masses till the time 
of Pius V. (Bona, i. 211). 

2 It is a curious fact that the practice of "evening communions" in tho 
Church of England is said to have been originated by the High Church party, 
to whom it has now become the most offensive of all deviations from the ordi- 
nary usage. 

8 The words ave/ceiTo — avaxet/xeVwv — dvetAe<re (Matt. xxvi. 4; Mark xiv. 13; 
Luke xxii. 14; John xiii. 23, 28) are decisive. 

* There is also a quite modern representation of the same kind in the altar- 
piece of a church in Darlington. 



52 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

times. It is disputed whether he does so now. It would 
seem that about the fifteenth century he exchanged the 
posture for one half sitting, half standing, just as in the 
procession of Corpus Christi he adopts a posture in which 
he seems to kneel but really sits.^ 

The next posture is that which indicates the transition 
from the social meal to the religious ordinance. It is the 
attitude of standing, which throughout the East, as in 
the Apostolic and Jewish Church, is the usual posture of 
prayer. This is preserved in the Western Church only 
in the attitude of the celebrating priest, who in the Ro- 
man Catholic Church remains standing. Whether in 
the English Church the rubric enjoins the clergyman to 
stand or to kneel while receiving has been much dis- 
puted. If the former, it is then in conformity with the 
ancient usage of the Roman Church ; if the latter, it is 
in conformity with modern usage. 

The fourth is the posture of kneeling. This, which 
prevails amongst all members of the English Church, and 
amongst lay members of the Roman Catholic Church, is 
the most modern of all. It expresses reverence, in the 
most suitable way for Western Christians ; but all trace 
of the original, festive. Oriental character of the ordi- 
nance is altogether superseded by it. 

We now come to the sacred elements. 

IV. The lamb, the bitter herbs of the first Paschal 
feast, if they were retained at all in the Apostolic times, 
soon disappeared. It was not on these, but on the 
liomely, universal elements of the bread and wine that 
the First Founder of the ordinance laid the whole stress. 

The original bread of the original institution was not a 

loaf, but the Paschal cake — a large round thin biscuit, 

such as may be seen every Easter in Jewish 

houses. " He hrohe the bread," " the breaking 

1 The question is discussed at length in the chapter on the Pope. 



Chap. III.] THE ELEMENTS. 53 

of bread," is far more suitable to this than to a loaf. Of 
this form the trace remains, reduced to the smallest par- 
ticle, in the wafer ^ as used in the Roman and Lutheran 
Churches. It may be doubted, however, whether they 
took it direct from the Paschal cake — first, because the 
Greek Churches, which are more tenacious of ancient 
usages than the Latin, have not done so ; secondly, be- 
cause the round form is sufficiently accounted for by the 
fact that the bread as used by the ancient world (as seen 
in the bakers' shops at Pompeii and also in the paintings 
of the catacombs) was in the shape of round flat cakes. 
It is also alleged (though this is doubtful) that the com- 
mon bread of the poor in early times was in the West 
unleavened, whereas in the East it was leavened. There 
are some parts of the Greek Church where the use of 
leavened bread is justified by the assertion that they have 
an actual piece of the very loaf used at the Last Supper, 
and that it is leavened.^ 

This peculiarity of form is an illustration of two gen- 
eral principles. First, it is evident that the Roman and 
Lutheran Churches, by adhering to the literal form of 
the old institution, have lost its meaning ; and the Re- 
formed Churches, whilst certainly departing from the orig- 
inal form, have preserved the meaning. The bread of 
common life, which was in the three first centuries repre- 

1 A long argument was maintained in an English newspaper to repudiate 
the validity of the Roman Sacrament, on the ground that its wafers were made 
not of bread but of paste. A curious example of an adventitious sacredness 
attaching itself to a particular form of Sacramental bread is to be found in the 
use of "shortbread," instead of the ordinary leavened or unleavened bread, 
amongst the "hill men" of Scotland. "I myself," writes a well-informed 
minister of the Chui'ch of Scotland, "thirty years ago assisted at an open air 
Communion in the parish of Dahy, in Galloway, where this had been the cus- 
tom from time immemorial. The minister's wife sent so many pounds of fresh 
butter to a distant baker, and received back, preparatory to the Communion, so 
many cakes of 'shortbread,' i. e. brittle bread, which was kept nearly as care- 
fully as a Roman Catholic would keep his wafer." 

2 Pashley's Crete, i. 316. 



54 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

sented by the thin unleavened cake is now represented 
by the ordinary loaf. The mystical fancy of the Middle 
Ages which attached to the wafer is in fact founded 
on that which was once the most ordinary form of 
food. Secondly, the fierce controversy which broke 
out afterwards between the Greek and Latin Churches 
on the question whether the bread should be leavened or 
unleavened arose, in the first instance, out of the most 
trivial divergence of an usage of ordinary life. 

The wine in the original institution was (as we know 

from the Paschal Supper) arranged in two, three, or 

sometimes four cups, or rather bowls. In this 

TllG WIDO. 

bowl was the wine of Palestine mixed with 
water. The water is not expressly mentioned either in 
the account of the original institution or in the earliest 
accounts of the primitive Communion ; but it was be- 
yond question there, in accordance with the universal 
practice of the ancient world. To drink wine ^ without 
water was like drinking pure brandy now. The name 
for a drinking goblet was KpaT-rjp, which means a " mix- 
ing " vessel. To this day wine in modern Greek is 
called Kpaa-l, "the mixed." 

The deviations from the original use of the cup are in- 
structive from their variety. Not a single Church now 
communicates in the form in which it was originally 
given. The Reformed Churches, on the same principle 
as that on which they have adopted a common loaf in- 
stead of a thin wafer, have dropped the water. The 
Greek Churches have mixed the bread with the wine. 
The Roman Churches have dropped the use of the cup 
altogether except for the officiating priest. It was an in- 
novation which spread slowly, and which but for the Ref- 

1 Thus in the Syro-Jacobitic liturgy (see Neale's Translations of Primi- 
tive Liturgies, pp. 202, 223) it is said He "temperately and moderately" 
mingled the wine and water. It is also mentioned in Justin Martyr, Apol. 
c. 67. 



Chap. III.] THE FISH. 55 

ormation would have become universal, except in a few 
curious instances in which the original practice continued. 
The King of France always took the cup. The Bohemi- 
ans 1 extorted the use of it from the Pope. The laity in 
England were long conciliated by having un consecrated 
wine. The Abbot of Westminster always administered 
it to the King and Queen at the coronation. And in the 
three northern churches ^ of Jarrow, Monkwearmouth, 
and Norham it was given till 1515.^ 

There remains one other usage, more doubtful perhaps 
but exceedingly interesting, and from which the varia- 
tion has been of the same kind as those we have 

The fish. 

noticed. In ancient times a meal, even of bread, 
was not thought complete without fish (oif/ov) whenever it 
could be had. " Bread and fish " went together like 
" bread and cheese " or •' bread and butter " in England, 
or (as we have just observed) like " wine and water " in 
the old classical world. Meat was the exception and 
fish^ the rule. And accordingly, if not in the original 
institution of the Last Supper, yet in those indications of 
the first continuation of it which are contained in the 
last chapters of St. Luke and St. John, fish is always 
mentioned with bread as part of the sacred meal. In the 
local traditions of the Roman peasants — many of them 
no doubt mere plays of fancy, yet some probably imbued 
with the continuous traditions of antiquity — it is said 
that when Jesus Christ came to the house of an old 
woman and asked for food, she answered, " There is a 
little fish " (it was a little fish, " that is not so long as 
my hand," said the peasant) " and some crusts of bread 

1 Two chalices remain in one of the Bohemian churches (and that Protestant), 
which were carried at the head of the Hussite armies. 

2 Blunt's Reformation, p. 34. 

3 The Wesleyans in the Sandwich Islands celebrated the Eucharist with 
treacle instead of wine, — there being no vines, — and were opposed by the 
Quakers on principle. I owe this to the late Count Strelecski. 

4 Bekker's Charicles, 323, 324. 



66 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

which they gave me at the eating-house for charity, and 
this flask of wine and water which they gave me there." ^ 
Further, the early representations of the Sacred Supper 
(whether we call it Eucharist or Agape) which appear 
in the catacombs, almost always include fishes — some- 
times placed on the cakes of bread, sometimes on a platter 
by itself. It is almost impossible to resist the inference 
which has been drawn, that this too was part of the prim- 
itive celebration. It was a part which would be doubly 
cherished, a recollection not only of the upper chamber 
of Jerusalem, but of the stiU more sacred shores of the 
Lake of Gennesareth.^ There was in the Middle Ages a 
fish called "the Paschal pickerel," from the tradition 
that the Lord had in the Last Supper substituted a fish 
for the Paschal lamb.^ In the Cathedral of Salerno there 
is a picture of the Last Supper (in the sacristy) with a 
fish. It disappeared from the Christian monuments alto- 
gether at the end of the fifth century, and is common 
only in the second and third. It has now entirely van- 
ished, and the recollection of it has been obliterated by 
the symbolism to which it has given birth. Just as the 
ordinary form of the cake furnished occasion for the fan- 
ciful interpretation that it was the likeness of the thirty 
pieces for which the Betrayal was made, and the water 
and wine (the ordinary mode of drinking wine) was 
made to symbolize the water and the blood, or the double 
nature, or the two Testaments, so the fish was in the 
fourth century interpreted by a curious acrostic to be our 
Lord himself — 'It^ct-ov? Xpto-ro; ©eov Ytos 2(0X77^.* This in- 
terpretation, which first appears ^ in Optatus of Mile vis 
(a. d. 384), was not known in earlier times, and was 

1 Busk's 'Folic Lore of Rome, 11 i. 

2 Renan, Vie de Jesus, 303; Spic. Solesmiense, iii. 568. 

3 Gunton's History of Peterborough, p. 337. 

4 Northcote, 210-15. 

fi Wharton Marriott's Essay on the Fish of Autun. 



Chap. III.] THE TABLE. 57 

very imperfectly recognized even by Augustine. The 
fish itself, if as we may suppose it formed part of the 
original and primitive ordinance, is one of those partic- 
ulars of sacred antiquity which are gone beyond recall. 
Not a trace of it exists in the New Testament. It is gone 
from all celebrations of the Eucharist, as the water from 
the wine in Protestant celebrations, as the wine from the 
bread in Roman administrations. 

V. One more trace of the social festive character of 
the original ordinance was the table. To the question 
whether it was ever called an altar in those 

. The table. 

ages we will return presently. But there is no 
doubt that it was always of wood, and that the mensa 
or rpdiTc^a was its ordinary name. In the representa- 
tions in the catacombs, it is as if a circular table.^ In 
the earliest forms of churches, whether as in the small 
chapels in the catacombs, or as in the great basilicas of 
Rome, or in the Eastern churches, it stood and stands in 
front of the apse. This in Western churches was super- 
seded in later times by stone structures fastened to the 
east end of the church. But in the Protestant churches, 
both Reformed and Lutheran, the wooden structure and 
the detached position were retained, and in the English 
and Scottish churches, both Episcopal and Presbyterian, 
wooden tables were brought at the time of the Holy 
Communion into the middle of the church. There was 
only this difference in their position from that in the 
primitive Church, that in the English Church they were 
placed lengthwise, the officiating minister standing in 
the middle of the side facing the people. On this ar- 
rangement all the rubrics are founded, and, curiously 
enough, were not altered, - when, after Laud's time, the 
position of the table was again brought back to what it 
had been before the Reformation. Deerhurst church in 

1 See the various authorities quoted in Kenan's St. Fmd, 266. 



58 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

Gloucestershire alone retains for it the position which 
was given in the time of Edward VI. Thus while the 
position of the Holy Table in England is now conform- 
able to the mediaeval practice of the Latin Church, the 
rubric which speaks of " the north side," which is no 
longer capable of being observed, remains the sole relic 
in our service of the conformity with which it was in- 
tended to be brought with the primitive usage. 

VI. We have now reached the last trace of the social, 
and, as it may be called, secular character of the prim- 
The posture ^^ive Eucharist. We pass to the forms by 
of 1;w'mhl^ which, no doubt from the first, but increasing as 
ister. time rolled on, the religious or sacred character 

with which it had been invested was brought out into 
words, and in doing so we are at once brought into the 
presence of all that we know of the early Christian wor- 
ship. The Liturgy, properly speaking, was the celebra- 
tion of the Holy Communion. The worship of the early 
Christians gathered round this as the nucleus. We must 
picture to ourselves the scene according to the arrange- 
ment which has been clearly described. The Bishop, or 
Presiding Minister, as he is called by Justin Martyr, is 
on his lofty seat behind the table, overlooking it, facing 
the congregation who stood on the other side of it in 
front of him. The other ministers, if there were any 
— probably Deacons — sat or stood in a semicircle im- 
mediately beneath and around him. This position is now 
almost entirely lost. The Pope to a certain degree keeps 
it up, as he always, in celebrating mass, stands behind 
the altar, facing the people. The arrangements of an- 
cient churches, like that of Torcello at Venice, though 
long disused, are proofs of the ancient custom. The 
nearest likeness is to be seen in the Scottish Presbyte- 
rian Church, where the minister, from his lofty pulpit 
behind the table, addresses the congregation, with his 



Chap. III.] POSTURE AND POSITION OF THE MINISTER. 59 

elders beneath him on the pulpit stairs, or round its base. 
The dress of the bishop and clergy who are to officiate, 
except by mere accident, in no way distinguishes them 
from the congregation in front of them.^ The prayers 
are uttered throughout standing, and with outstretched 
hands. The posture of devotion was standing, as is the 
universal practice in the East. The outstretched hands 
are open in Mussulman devotions, as also in the cata- 
combs. They express the hope of receiving into them 
the blessings from above. Of the outstretched hands a 
reminiscence was very long present in the benediction — 
manihus extensis ^ — of the priest. As in other cases, so 
here, when the original meaning was lost, this simple 
posture was mystically explained as the extension of the 
hands of Christ on the cross.^ 

Of this standing posture of the congregation which 
still prevails throughout the East, all traces have disap- 
peared in the Western Church, except in the attitude of 
the officiating minister at the Eucharist, and in the wor- 
ship of the Presbyterian Churches always. Its extinc- 
tion is the more remarkable, because it was enjoined by 
the only canon of the Council of Nicsea, v^hich related 
to public worship, and which ordered that on every Sun- 
day (whatever license might be permitted on other days) 
and on every day between Easter and Pentecost, kneel- 
ing should be forbidden and standing enjoined. In the 
controversy between the Church and the Puritans in the 
seventeenth century, there was a vehement contention 
whether kneeling at the Sacrament should be permitted. 
It was the point on which the Church most passionately 
insisted, and which the Puritans most passionately re- 

1 See the case, as discussed 1 y Cardinal Bona, and the futility of the argu- 
ments by which he endeavors to refute the mass of authority on the other side. 

2 Maskell, p. 79. The last trace of it in England is in the Life of St. Dun- 
stan. 

8 Ibid. 



60 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

sisted. The Church party in this were resisting the 
usage of ancient Catholic Christendom, and disobeying 
the Canon of the First CEcumenical Council, to which 
they professed the most complete adhesion. The Puri- 
tans, who rejected the authority of either, were in the 
most entire conformity with both. 

VII. Another element of the worship was the reading 

of the Scriptures. This has continued in most Christian 

Churches, but in none can it be said to occupy 

Reading of , , , . • i j_ • 

the Script- the same solemn prominence as in early times, 
when it was a continuation of the tradition of 
reading the Law and the Prophets in the Jewish syna- 
gogues. A trace of this is visible in the amhoyies — the 
magnificent reading-desks of the early Roman churches, 
from w^hich the Gospel and Epistle were read. Long 
were these preserved in Italian churches after the use of 
them had been discontinued. Nothing can be more 
splendid than the ambones in the church at Ravello near 
Amalfi, which though long deserted remain a witness to 
the predominant importance attributed in ancient times 
to the reading of the Bible in the public service. In the 
French Church the very name of the lofty screens which 
parted the nave from the choir bears testimony to the 
same principle. The}^ were called Juhe^ from the open- 
ing words of the introduction of the Gospel, Juhe^ Do- 
mine. Those that still exist, like that at Troyes, and 
also in the King's College Chapel at Aberdeen, ^ by their 
stately height and broad platforms, show how imposing 
must have been this part of the service, now so humili- 
ated and neglected. Few such now remain. The pas- 
sion for revolutionary equality on one side and ecclesias- 
tical uniformity on the other Lave done their worst. 
They have now either disappeared altogether, or are 
never used for their original purpose. 

1 At Eheiras, the Kings of France were crowned upon the screen, so to be 
visible at once to those in the choir and those in the nave. 



Chap. Ill] THE READING OF THE SCRIPTURES. 61 

In England the huge reading-desk or " pew " long sup- 
plied the place of the old ambo, but that is now being 
gradually swept away, and there only remains the lectern, 
in modern times reduced to so small a dimension as to be 
almost invisible. 

The Prophets of the Old Testament, the Epistles of 
the New — chiefly St. Paul — were read from the lower 
step of the staircase leading up to the ambo. In some 
churches the Gospel of Thomas and the first Epistle of 
Clement were added. The Gospel was from one of the 
four Gospels, and was read from the upper step, or some- 
times from a separate ambo. Selections from the Script- 
ures were not fixed ; each reader chose them at his dis- 
cretion. There is an instance in France as late as the 
fifth century of their being chosen by opening the book 
at hazard. The reader was usually the deacon or sub- 
deacon ; not, as with us, the chief clergyman present. 
Of this a trace remains in the English Church, especially 
in the Channel Islands, where laymen may read the les- 
sons. The reader of the Gospel if possible faced, not as 
with us to the west, but to the south, because the men 
sate ^ on the south, and it was a fine idea that in a manly 
religion like Christianity the Gospel belonged especially 
to them. 

VIII. Then came the address, sometimes preached from 
one of the ambones, but more usually from the Bishop's 
seat behind the table. It was called a " Homily " 

. . "^ The Homily. 

or " bermon — that is, a conversation ; not a 
speech or set discourse, but a talk, a homely colloquial 
instruction. The idea is still kept up in the French word 
conference. It is not possible that the sermon or homily 
should ever return to its original meaning. But it is 
well for us to remember what that meaning was. It was 
the talking, the conversation, of one Christian man with 

1 Ordo Rom. ii. 8 (see Dictionary of Antiquities). 



62 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. in. 

another : the practical address, as Justin Martyr says, 
exhorting the people to the imitation of the good things 
that they have just had read to them from the Bible ; 
the mutual instruction which is implied in animated dis- 
cussion. It is, in short, the very reverse of what is 
usually meant by a " homily." 

Thus far any one might attend at the worship. In the 
Christian Church of the early times, before infant bap- 
tism had become common, a large part of the congrega- 
tion consisted of unbaptized persons, and when the time 
for the more sacred part of the service came, they were 
warned off. There is a part of the service of the Eastern 
Church when the deacon comes forward and says, " The 
doors, the doors ! " meaning that all who are not Chris- 
tians are to go away and the doors are to be shut. But 
they do not go away, and the doors — at least, the doors 
of the church — are not shut. 

IX. The solemn service opening with a practice which 
belongs to the childlike joyous innocence of the early 
ages-, and which as such was upheld as abso- 
lutely essential to the Christian worship, but 
which now has, with one exception, disappeared from the 
West, and with two exceptions from the East. It was 
the kiss of feace. Justin mentions it as the universal 
mode of opening the service. It came down direct from 
the Apostolic time.^ Sometimes the men kiss the men, 
the women the women ; sometimes it was without distinc- 
tion. But it was thought so essential that to abstain 
from it was a mark of mourning or excessive austerity. 
In the West this primitive practice now exists only in 
the small Scottish sect of the Glassites or Sandemanians. 
In the Latin Church, it was continued till the end of the 
thirteenth century, and was then transferred to the close 
of the service. In its place was then substituted a piece 

1 1 Thess. V. 26; 1 Cor. xvi. 20; 2 Cor. xiii. 12; Rom. xvi. 16; 1 Pet. v. 14. 



Chap. III.] THE KISS OF PEACE. 63 

of the altar furniture called a Pax^ and this was given to 
the deacon with the words, '•''Pax tiW^ et ecelesioe.''' This 
is a singular instance of the introduction of a purely 
mechanical and mediaeval contrivance instead of a living^ 
social observance.^ The only trace of it remaining in the 
English service is the final benediction, which begins 
with the words " The peace of God." In the Eastern 
Church it still remains to some extent. In the Russian 
Church, perhaps in other Eastern Churches, the clergy 
kiss each other during the recital of the Nicene Creed, to 
show that charity and orthodoxy should always go to- 
gether, not, as is too often the case, parted asunder. In 
the Coptic Church, the most primitive and conservative 
of all Christian Churches, it still continues in full force. 
Travellers now living have had their faces stroked, and 
been kissed, by the Coptic priest, in the cathedral at 
Cairo, whilst at the same moment everybody else was kiss- 
ing everybody throughout the church. Had any primi- 
tive Christians been told that the time would come when 
this, the very sign of Christian brotherhood and sister- 
hood, would be absolutely proscribed in the Christian 
Church, they would have thought that this must be the 
result of unprecedented persecution or unprecedented un- 
belief. It is impossible to imagine the omission of any 
act more sacred, more significant, more necessary (accord- 
ing to the view which then prevailed) to the edification 
of the service. 

X. Then came the offering of the bread and wine by 
the people. It was, as we have seen, the memorial of 
the ancient practice of the contribution of the 
Christian community towards a common meal. 
The prayer in which this was offered was in fact the 

1 See Kenan's St. Paul, 262. 

2 Maskell, 116. The importance of the "kiss " as a token of reconciliation 
is illustrated by the importance attached in the contention between Henry 11. 
and Becket, to the question whether " the kiss " had fairly been given. 



64 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

centre of the whole service. This is the point at which 
we first come into contact with the germ of a fixed 
Liturgy.^ It has been often maintained that there are 
still existing forms which have come down to us from the 
first century, and even that the Liturgies which go under 
the names of St. James, St. Clement, and St. Mark were 
written by them. There are two fatal objections to this 
hypothesis. The first is the positive statement ^ of St. 
Basil that there was no written authority for any of the 
Liturgical forms of the Church in his time. The second 
is the fact that whilst there is a general resemblance in 
the ancient Liturgies to the forms known to exist in early 
times, there are such material variations from those forms 
as to render it impossible to suppose that the exact rep- 
resentatives of them anywhere exist. This will appear 
as we proceed, and therefore we shall only notice the 
details of the Liturgies so far as they contain the relics 
of the earlier state of things, or illustrate the changes 
which have brought us to the present state of Liturgical 
observances. 

The Prayer was spoken by the Bishop or Chief Pres- 
byter, as best he could — that is, as it would seem, not 
written, but spoken.^ It is thus the first sanction of ex- 
tempore prayer in the public service of the Church. But 



1 An argument often used to account for the absence of written liturgies is 
the doctrine of "reserve," an argument which has been even pushed to the 
extent of thus accounting for the absence of any detailed account of the Sacra- 
ment in the New Testament or in the early Creeds. (Maskell, Preface to the 
Ancient Liturgy, pp. xxviii.-xxxi.) It is evident that the same feeling, if it 
operated at all, would have prevented such descriptions as are given by Justin, 
in a work avowedly intended for the outside world. 

2 Be Spiritu Sancio, c. 27. The passage is quoted at length in Maskell (Pref. 
p. xxvi.) with the opinions strongly expressed to the same effect, of Renaudot 
and Lebrun, and the confirmatory argument that had written liturgies existed 
they would have been discoverable in the time of the Diocletian persecution. 
"There are no Liturgies," says Lebrun, "earlier than the fifth century" (iii. 
1-17). 

8 Justin, A;pol. c. 67. 



Chap. UI.] THE PRAYER OF OBLATION. 65 

extempore prayer always tends to become fixed or Litur- 
gical. If we hear the usual Prayers in the Church of 
Scotland, they are sure to retain on the whole the same 
ideas, and often the very same words. Thus it was in 
the early Church, and thus a Liturgy arose. 

There was one long prayer, of which the likenesses 
are preserved in the long prayers before or after the ser- 
mon in Presbyterian or Nonconformist churches, the 
Bidding Prayer and the Prayer of Consecration in the 
Church of England. The main difference is that in the 
early Church this prayer was all on one occasion, namely, 
at the time of the consecration of the elements ; in the 
Eoman and in the English Prayer Book it is, as it were, 
scattered through the service. 

In this prayer there are two peculiarities which belong 
to the ancient Church, and have since not been brought 
forward prominently in any church. It is best seen in 
the Roman Missal, which incorporates here, as elsewhere, 
passages quite inconsistent with the later forms with 
which it has been incrusted. 

It is clear, from the Missal, that the priest officiates 
as one of the people, and as the representative of the 
people, seeing that throughout the Office of the Mass he 
associates the people with himself as concerned equally 
with himself in every prayer that he offers and every act 
that he performs. Just as he unites the people's prayers 
with his own by the use of the plural forms, " We pray," 
''•We beseech Thee," instead of the singular, so in the 
most solemn acts of the Eucharist, after the consecration 
of the elements as well as before, he uses the plural form, 
*' We offer," that is, we, priest and people, offer ; thereby 
including the people with himself in the act of sacrific- 
ing. And this is made still more clear when he is told 
to say, " We beseech Thee that Thou wouldest graciously 
accept this offering of Thy whole family, and also we 

5 



66 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

Thy servants and also Thy holy people offer to Thy glo- 
rious Majesty a pure sacrifice." And not only so, but 
the attention of the people is called to it as a fact which 
it is desirable they should not be allowed to forget. Ad- 
dressing the people the priest says, " All you, both 
brethren and sisters, pray that my sacrifi.ce and your sac- 
rifice, which is equally yours as well as mine, may be 
meet for the Lord." And so in the intercessory prayer 
of oblation for the living the language which the priest 
uses carefully shows that the sacrificial act is not his but 
theirs. " Remember," he says, " Thy servants and Thy 
handmaids, and all who stand around, and who offer to 
Thee this sacrifice of praise for themselves and for all 
their relations." 

But there is the further question of what is the chief 
offering which is presented. The offering which is pre- 
sented is, throughout, one of two things : first 

TheofPering ' n ■ i ^i i • • 

of the bread the sacritice 01 praise and thanksffiving, as m 

and wine. i • i ^ ^ t \ 

the words which we nave already quoted ; or 
secondly, the gifts of the fruits of the earth, especially the 
bread and wine, which are brought in, and which are ex- 
pressly called " a holy sacrifice," and " the immaculate 
host." Every term which is applied to the elements 
after consecration is distinctly and freely applied to them 
before. What is done by the consecration in the Missal 
is the prayer that these natural elements of the earth 
may be transformed to our spiritual use by the blessing 
of God upon them. It is necessary to observe that the 
sacrifice offered, whether in the early Church or in the 
original Roman Missal, was either of praise and thanks- 
giving, which we still offer, both clergy and people, or 
else of the natural fruits of the earth, which we do in- 
deed offer in name, but of which the full idea and mean- 
ing has so much passed out of the minds of all Christians 
in modern days, that we seldom think of it. It is one of 



Chap. III.] NATURAL WORSHIP. 67 

the differences between the early Church and our own, 
which it is impossible to recover, but which it is neces- 
sary to bear in mind, both because the idea was in itself 
exceedingly beautiful, and because it does not connect 
itself in the least degree with any of our modern contro- 
versies.^ 

The ancient form expresses in the strongest manner 
the goodness of God in Nature. It is we might almost 
say a worship — or more properly, an actual enjoyment 
and thankful recognition — of the gifts of Creation. So 
completely was this felt in the early times, that a custom 
prevailed, which as time went on was checked by the 
increasing rigidity of ecclesiastical rules, that not only 
bread and wine,^ but honey, milk, strong drink, and 
birds were offered on the altar; and even after these 
were forbidden, ears of corn and grapes were allowed, 
and other fruits, though not offered on the altars, were 
given to the Bishop and Presbyters. 

All this appears in unmistakable force both in the 
heathen and the Jewish worship, and from them it over- 
flowed into the Christian, and received there an addi- 
tional life, from the tendency which, as we have seen, 
runs through the whole of these early forms to identify 
the sacred and profane, to elevate the profane by making 
it sacred, and to realize the sacred by making it common. 
It lingers in a few words in the English Prayer for the 
Church Militant, " the oblations which we offer," and in 
the expression "It is very meet and right to give thanks." 
It included the recollection of, and the prayers for, the 
main objects of human interest — the Emperor, the 
army, their friends dead and living, the rain, the springs 
and wells so dear in Eastern countries, the rising of the 

1 The Mass disowned by the Missal. A very able and exhaustive paper in the 
Madras Times by Bishop Caldwell, Oct. 1867. 

2 Apostolical Canons^ 2. 



68 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

Nile SO dear in Egypt, the floods to be deprecated at 
Constantinople. The whole of their common life was 
made to pass before them. Nothing was " common or 
unclean " to them at that moment. They gave thant > 
for it, they hoped that it might be blessed and continui ■■ 
to them.^ 

There is a representation in the catacombs of a m? ; 
and a woman joining in the offering of bread. Tno 
woman, it is sometimes said, is the Chm-ch ; but if so 
this confirms the same idea. The bread and wine are 
still in England, as above noticed, the gifts not of the 
minister, but of the parish, and this offering by the con- 
gregation, which prevailed in the Catholic countries of 
Europe generally till the tenth century, lingered on in 
some French abbeys till the eighteenth. It is this offer- 
ing of the fruits of the earth to which Cyprian ^ and 
Irenseus ^ give the name of " sacrifice." It is probable 
that the tenacity with which this word clung to these 
outward elements in the early ages was occasioned by 
the eagerness to claim for Christian worship something 
which resembled the old animal and vegetable sacrifices 
of Judaism and heathenism, and that its comparative 
disappearance from all Christian worship in later times 
in like manner was coincident with the disappearance of 
the temples and altars alike of Palestine and of Italy. 

This offering formed the main bulk of the prayer. 
Then followed what in modern times would be called 
The Lord's "the cousecratiou." The earlier accounts of 
Prayer. ^]^g Liturgy, whether in Justin or Irenseus, 
agree in the statement that after the completion of the 
offering followed an invocation to the Spirit of God " to 

1 See Bunsen, Christianity and Manlcind, vii. 24. 

2 Cyprian, De Op. p. 203, ed. Tell. (Palmer's Antiquities, ii. 86). 

s See the Pfaffian fragment of Irenseus quoted in Arnold's Fragments on the 
Church, p. 129 ; and this, with all the other passages from Irenseus bearing on 
the question in Bunsen's Christianity and Manhind, ii. 424:-29. 



Chap. III.] THE LOED'S PRAYER. 69 

make the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ." 
But in what did it consist? Here again seems to be dis- 
closed a divergence of which very slight traces remain in 
any celebrations of the Eucharist, whether Protestant or 
Catholic. It is at least probable that it consisted of 
nothing else than the Lord's Prayer. This was the im- 
mense importance of the Lord's Prayer ; not as with us, 
repeated many times over, but reserved for this one 
prominent place. The first Eucharistic prayer was ampli- 
fied more or less according to the capacities of the minis- 
ter. The Lord's Prayer was the one fixed formula. It 
was in fact the whole '' liturgy " properly so called. 
" The change " — whatever it were that he meant by it 
— " the change of the bread and wine into the body and 
blood of Christ," says Justin, " is by the Word of Prayer 
which comes from Him." ^ " It was the custom," says 
Gregory the First, " of the Apostles to consecrate the 
oblation only by the Lord's Prayer." There is a trace 
of its accommodation to this purpose of giving a moral 
and spiritual purport to the natural gifts in the variation 
recorded by Tertullian, where, ^ instead of " Thy king- 
dom come," it is " May Thy Holy Spirit come upon us 
and purify us." It is also obvious that " Give us this 
day our daily bread " would thus gain a peculiar signifi- 
cance. " Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us 
from evil," had also a peculiar stress laid upon it.^ It 
also lingers in the Consecration Prayer of the Eastern 

1 Compare Justin, Apol. 66; Jerome, Adv. Pelag. 3: " Apostolos quotidie 
Orationem Domini solitos dicere." (Maskell, Pref. p. xxxviii.) See also Am- 
brosiaster, De Sacra mentis, iv. 4: "consecrated by the words of Christ." 
Bunsen, vii. 15, 55; ii. 177. 

2 Adv. Marcion, iv. 21. 

3 Cardinal Bona {Rer. Lit. i. 5) and Mr. Maskell fPreface, pp. xx.-xxii.) 
endeavor to attenuate the force of this passage by quoting passages from Wala- 
fridus Strabo and later writers, and by their own conjectures, that "at least the 
words of the institution were also recited." But of this there is not a trace, 
either in Gregory or Justin. Bunsen, vii. 121. 



70 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. III. 

Church, where the petition for the coming of the Spirit 
is amplified, and made the chief point in the consecration. 
In the East the whole congregation joined in the Lord's 
Prayer,^ and thus participated in the consecration. In 
the Coptic Church, accordingly, the Lord's Prayer is the 
only part of the service which is recited in Arabic — the 
vulgar tongue.^ In the Russian Church it is sung by the 
choir ; and of all the impressive effects produced by the 
magnificent swell of human voices in the Imperial 
Chapel of the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, none is 
greater than the recitation of the Lord's Prayer by the 
choir without, while the consecration goes forward within. 
In the Mozarabic Liturgy the people said Amen to every 
clause except the fourth, where they said. Quia es Deus.^ 
In the West the priest alone recited it. But both in the 
East and the West the consecration was not complete 
till it had been ratified in the most solemn way by the 
congregation. For it was at this point that there came, 
like the peal of thunder, the one word which has lasted 
through all changes and all Liturgies — the word which 
was intended to express the entire, truthful assent of the 
people to what was done and said — Amen. 

Then came forward the deacons and gave the bread, 
the water and the wine to all who were present, and then 
to those who were absent. The latter half of the practice 
has perished everywhere. For what is called the " res- 
ervation," or even taking the sacramental elements to 
the occasional sick, is evidently a totally different prac- 
tice from that of enabling the absent members of the 
community to join in the ordinance itself. 

These are the original elements of the Christian Lit- 
urgy. The Lord's Prayer, which was thus once conspicu- 

1 Bunsen, vii. 280. 

2 Renaudot, Lit. Or. i. 262. 

3 Les Anciennes Liturgies, p. 671. 



Chap. III.] THE SERVICE. 71 

ous, has lost its place. In the Roman Church, as well as 
the Eastern, in spite of the efforts of Gregory the Great, 
it now follows the Prayer of Consecration.^ In the Clem- 
entine Liturgy it is omitted altogether. ^ In the first 
English Liturgy of Edward VI., as in that introduced 
by Laud into Scotland, it occurs after the Prayer of Con- 
secration, but still before the administration. In. the 
present Liturgy it is separated from the Consecration 
Prayer altogether ; though on the other hand, as if to 
give it more dignity, it is twice repeated. 

The sacramental words have passed through three 
stages : first, the Lord's Prayer ; then in the East, the 
Prayer of Invocation ; then in the West, the words of 
institution.^ There is a spiritual meaning in each of 
these three forms. The original form was the most 
spiritual of all. The Western form, though excellent 
as bringing out the commemorative character of the sac- 
rament, is perhaps the most liable to fall into a mechan- 
ical observance. This has been reached in the fullest 
degree, in the opinion which has been entertained in the 
Roman Church that the words must be recited by the 
priest secretly, lest laymen overhearing them should in- 
discreetly repeat them over ordinary bread and wine, 
and thus inadvertently transform them into celestial sub- 
stances. Such an incident, it was believed, had actually 
taken place in the case of some shepherds who thus 
changed their bread and wine in a j&eld into flesh and 
blood, and were struck dead by a divine judgment.^ 

This is the summary of the celebration of the early 

1 Neale, Introd. 570, 622. 

2 See the long and strange arguments to account for this in Palmer, i. 40, 
and Maskell, Pref. xxxviii. 

3 The Western Church has not used a Prayer of Invocation for a thousand 
years. How exclusively Western is the notion that the words of institution 
have the effect of consecration is clear from the authorities quoted in Maskell, 
pp. cv., cvi., cxv. 

* See the authorities quoted in Maskell, Preface, p. ciii. 



72 THE EUCHARIST. [Chap. IE. 

Sacrament, so far as we can attach it to the framework 
furnished by Justin. But there are a few fragments of 
ancient worship, which, though we cannot exactly adjust 
their place, partly belong to the second century. Some 
have perished, and some continue. In the morning was 
an antistrophic hymn (perhaps the germ of the " Te 
Deum ") to Christ ^ as God, and also the sixty-third 
Psalm. In the evening there was the hundred and forty- 
first Psalm.2 The evening hymn on bringing in the 
candles, as now in Mussulman countries, is a touching 
reminiscence of the custom in the Eastern Church. The 
" Sursum corda" ("Lift up your hearts"), and the 
" Holy, holy, holy," were parts of the hymns of which 
we find traces in the accounts of all the old Liturgies. 
The " Gloria in excelsis " was sung at the beginning of 
the service. Down to the beginning of the eleventh 
century, it was (except on Easter Day) only said by 
Bishops.^ 

This survey brings before us the wide diversity and 
yet unity of Christian worship^ That so fragile an ordi- 
nance should have survived so many shocks, so many su- 
perstitions, so many centuries, is in itself a proof of the 
immense vitality of the religion which it represents — of 
the prophetic insight of its Founder. 

1 Pliny, Ep. x. 97. 2 Bunsen, ii. 50. » Maskell, p. 25. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. 

It is proposed to bring out in more detail what is 
meant by Sacrifice in the Christian Church. In order 
to do this, we must first understand what is meant by it, 
first in the Jewish and Pagan dispensations, and secondly 
in the Christian dispensation. 

I. We hardly think sufficiently what was the nature 
of an ancient sacrifice. Let us conceive the changes 
which would be necessary in any church in order to make 
it fit for such a ceremony. In the midst of an open 
court, so that the smoke of the fire and the odors of the 
slain animals might go up into the air, as from the 
hearths of our ancient baronial or collegiate halls, stood 
the Altar — a huge platform — detached from all around, 
and with steps approaching it from behind and from be- 
fore, from the right and from the left. Around this 
structure, as in the shambles of a great city, were col- 
lected, bleating, lowing, bellowing, the oxen, sheep, and 
goats, in herds and flocks, which one by one were led up 
to the altar, and with the rapid stroke of the sacrificer's 
knife, directed either by the king or priest, they received 
their death-wounds. Their dead carcases lay throughout 
the court, the pavement streaming with their blood, their 
quivering flesh placed on the altar to be burnt, the black 
columns of smoke going up to the sky, the remains after- 
wards consumed by the priests or worshippers who were 
gathered for the occasion as to an immense banquet. ^ 

1 See an exhaustive account of the matter in Ewald' s AUerfhuiner, pp. 29-84. 



74 THE EUCHARISTIC SACEIFICE. [Chap. IV. 

This was a Jewish sacrifice. This, with slight varia- 
tion, was the form of heathen sacrifice also. This is still 
the form of sacrifice in the great Mahometan Sanctuary ^ 
at Mecca. This — except that the victims were not irra- 
tional animals, but human beings — was the dreadful 
spectacle presented in the sacred inclosare at Coomassie, 
in Ashantee, as it was in the Carthaginian and Phoenician 
temples of old time. 

II. All these sacrifices, in every shape or form, have 
long disappeared from the religions of the civilized world. 
Substitution Already, under the ancient dispensation, the 
of new Ideas, yoices of Psalmist and Prophet had been lifted 
up against them. " Sacrifice and meat-offering Thou 
wouldest not ; " " Thinkest thou that I will eat bull's 
flesh or drink the blood of goats ; " "I delight not in the 
blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats ; " "I will 
not accept your burnt-offerings or your meat-offerings, 
neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat 
beasts." 

Has sacrifice then entirely ceased out of religious wor- 
ship? And had those old sacrifices no spiritual meaning 
hid under their mechanical, their strange, must we not 
even say their revolting, forms ? 

In themselves they have entirely ceased. Of all the 
forms of ancient worship they are the most repugnant to 
our feelings of humane and of Divine religion. But there 
was in these, as in most of the ceremonies of the old 
world, a liigher element which it has been the purpose 
of Christianity to bring out. In point of fact, the name 
of '' Sacrifice " has survived, after the form has perished. 

Let us for a moment go back to the ancient sacrifices, 
and ask what was their object. It was, in one word, an 
endeavor, whether from remorse, or thankfulness, or fear, 
to approach the Unseen Divinity. It was an attempt to 

1 Piirton's Pilgrimage to Mecca. 



Chap. IV.] PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING. 75 

propitiate, to gratify, the Supreme Power, by giving up 
something dear to ourselves which was also dear to Him, 
— to feed, to nourish, as it were, the great God above by 
the same food by which we also are fed, — to send mes- 
sages to Him by the smoke, the sweet-smelling odor 
which went up from the animals which the sacrificer had 
slain or caused to be slain. The one purpose which is 
given after every sacrifice in the first chapter of Levit- 
icus ^ is that it " shall make a sweet savor unto the 
Lord." 

Now, in the place of this gross, earthly conception of 
the approach of man to God, arose gradually three totally 
different ideas of approaching God, which have entirely 
superseded the old notion of priest and altar and victim 
and hecatomb and holocaust and incense, and to which, 
because of their taking the place of those ancient cere- 
monies, the name of sacrifice has in some degree been 
always applied. 

1. The first is the elevation of the heart towards God 
in prayer and thanksgiving. In the ancient Jewish and 
Pagan public worship, there was, properly speak- 
inPT, no prayer and no praise. Whatever devo- thanks- 

^'-^ X t/ L giving. 

tion the people expressed was only through the 
dumb show of roasted flesh and ascending smoke and 
fragrance of incense. But the Psalmist and Prophets in- 
troduced the lofty spiritual thought, that there was some- 
thing much more acceptable to the Divine nature, much 
more capable of penetrating the Sanctuary of the Un- 
seen, than these outward things, — namely, the words 
and thoughts of the divine speech and intellect of man. 
To these reasonable utterances, accordingly, by a bold 
metaphor, the Prophets transferred the phrase which had 
hitherto been used for the slaughter of beasts at the altar. 
In the 141st Psalm, the Psalmist says, " Let the lifting 

1 Lev. i. 13, 27, ii. 2, 12, iii. 8, 26. 



76 THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. [Chap. IV. 

up of my hands in prayer be to Thee as the evenmg sacri- 
fice," that is, let the simple peaceful act of prayer take 
the place of the blood-stained animal, struggling as in 
the hands of a butcher. In the 50th Psalm, after repu- 
diating altogether the value of dead bulls and goats, the 
Psalmist says, ''Whosoever offereth, — whosoever brings 
up as a victim to God, — thankful hymns of praise, he 
it is that honoreth Me." In the 51st Psalm, after reject- 
ing altogether burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin, the 
Psalmist says, "the true sacrifice of God," far more than 
this, "is a broken and contrite heart." This was a 
mighty change, and it has gone on growing ever since. 
The psalms of the Psalmists, the prayers of the Prophets, 
took the place of the dead animals which the priests had 
slain. The worship of the Synagogue, which consisted 
only of prayer and praise, superseded the worship of the 
Temple, which consisted almost entirely of slaughtering 
and burning ; and the worship of the Christian Church, 
which consisted also only of prayer and praise, superseded 
both Temple and Synagogue. As it has sometimes been 
said that the invention of printing inflicted a deathblow 
on mediaeval architecture, so much more did the dis- 
covery, the revelation, of prayer and praise, kill the old 
institution of sacrifice. 

It would have seemed strange to an old Jewish or 
Pagan worshipper to be told that the Deity would be 
more intimately approached by a word or a series of 
words, invisible to sense or touch, than by the tangible, 
material shapes of fat oxen or carefully reared sheep. 
Yet so it is ; and however much modern thought may 
disparage the use of articulate prayer, yet there is no 
one who will not say that the marvellous faculty of ex- 
pressing the various shades of mental feeling in the 
grandest forms of human speech is not an immense ad- 
vance on the irrational, inarticulate, mechanical work 
which made the place of worship a vast slaughter-house. 



Chap. IV.] SELF-SACRIFICE. 77 

2. Secondly, in the place of the early sacrifices, which 
were of no use to any one, or which were only of use as 
the great banquets of a civic feast, was revealed charitable 
the truth that the offerings acceptable to God ^^o^*^^- 
were those which contributed to the good of mankind. 
Thus the Prophet Hosea tells us that " God will have 
mercy instead of sacrifice." The Proverbs and the Book 
of Tobit tell us that sins are purged away, not by the 
blood of senseless animals, but by kindness to the poor. 
Beneficent, useful, generous schemes for the good of man- 
kind are the substitutes for those useless offerings of the 
ancient world. And because such beneficent acts can 
rarely be rendered except at some cost and pain and loss 
to ourselves, the word " sacrifice " has gradually been 
appropriated in modern language to such cost and pain 
and loss. " Such an one did such an act," we say, "but 
it was a great sacrifice for him." 

3. And this leads to the third or chief truth which 
has sprung up in place of the ancient doctrine of sacri- 
fices. It is that the sacrifice which God values geif.sacri- 
more than anything else is the willing obedi- ^^ 
ence of the heart to the eternal law of truth and good- 
ness — tlie willing obedience, even though it cost life and 
limb, and blood and suffering and death. The Psalmist, 
after saying that " Sacrifice and offering for sin were not 
required," declared that in the place thereof, '' Lo, I come 
to do Thy will, O my God." The Prophets declared 
that to obey was better than sacrifice, and to " hearken " 
to God's laws was better than the fattest portions of rams 
or of oxen; that " to do justly and walk humbly was 
more than rivers of oil or ten thousands of burnt-offer- 
ings." The sacrifice, the surrender of self, the fragrance 
of a holy and upright life, was the innermost access to 
the- Divine nature, of which every outward sacrifice, how- 
ever costly, was but a poor and imperfect shadow. This 



78 THE EUCHAEISTIC SACEIFICE. [Chap. IV. 

is the true food fit for the Holy Spirit of God, because it 
is the only sustaining food of the best spirit of man. 

These three things then, the lifting up of the heart in 
words of devotion to God, the performance of kindly and 
useful deeds to men, and the dedication of self, are the 
three things by which the Supreme Goodness and Truth, 
according to true Religion, is pleased, propitiated, satis- 
fied. 

HI. In the great exemplar and essence of Christianity, 
these three things are seen in perfection. 

In Jesus Christ there was the complete lifting up of 

the soul to God in prayer, of which He was Himself the 

most perfect example, and of which He has 

exemplified , ^ ^ 

in Jesus given us the most perfect pattern, ihe Lords 

Christ, 

Prayer is the sweet-smelling incense of all 
churches and of all nations. 

In Jesus Christ, who went about doing good, who 
lived and died for the sake of man, there was the most 
complete beneficence, compassion, and love. 

In Jesus Christ, who lived not for Himself, but for 
others ; who shed His blood that man might come to 
God : whose meat, whose food, whose daily bread it was 
" to do His Father's will," and whose whole life and death 
was summed up in the words, " Not My will, but Thine 
be done," was the most complete instance of that self- 
denial and self-dedication, which from Him has come to 
be called " self-sacrifice ; " and thus in Him all those an- 
ticipations and aspirations of the Psalmists and Prophets 
were amply and largely fulfilled. Thus by this true 
sacrifice of Himself, He abolished forever those false 
sacrifices. 

IV. But here arises the question. How far can any 
sacrifice be continued in the Christian Church now ? 
This has been in part answered by showing what were 
the universal spiritual truths which the Prophets put in 



Chap. IV.] SACRIFICES IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 79 

the place of the ancient sacrifices — and how these spirit- 
ual truths were fulfilled in the Founder of our religion. 
But it may make the whole subject more clear Thesacri- 
if we show how these same truths are carried ciSstia*n^ 
on almost in t]^e sauie words by the Apostles. ^•^^^'^^• 
The word ''sacrifice " is not applied iu any sense in the 
Gospels, unless, in the seventeenth chapter of St. John, 
the word " Consecrate " may be so read. But there are 
several cases in the other books in which it is employed 
in this sense. All Christians are "kings and priests."^ 
All Christians can at all times offer those real spiritual 
sacrifices of which those old heathen and Jewish sacri- 
fices were only the shadows and figures, and which could 
only be offered at stated occasions, by a particular order 
of men. When the word is used, it is used solely in those 
three senses of which we have been speaking. 

" Let us offer," says the Epistle to the Hebrews, " the 
sacrifice of praise always to God, that is the fruit of lips 
giving thanks to His name." '^ This, the continual duty 
of thankfulness, is the first sacrifice of the Christian 
Church. " To do good and to distribute forget not " 
(says the same Epistle), "for it is with such sacrifices^ 
that God is well pleased;" and again, St. Paul in the 
Epistle to the Philippians says of the contribution which 
his friends at Philippi had sent to him to assist him in 
sickness and distress, that it was "the odor of a sweet 
smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God." 
This, the duty of Christian usefulness and beneficence, is 
the second sacrifice of the Christian Church. " I beseech 
you to present your .bodies reasonable, holy and living 
sacrifices unto God." ^ This perpetual self-dedication of 
ourselves to the Supreme Good is the third and chief 
sacrifice of the Christian Church always and everywhere, 

1 Rev. i. 6. 2 Heb. xiii. 15. 3 Heb. xiii. 16. 

4 Rom. xii. 1; comp. 1 Pet. ii. 5. 



80 THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. [Chap. IV. 

and it is also the sense in which, in the Epistle to the 
Ephesians,^ Christ is said to have " given Himself for us 
an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling 
savor." 

In these three senses the Christian Religion, whilst 
destroying utterly and forever all outward sacrifices, 
whether animal sacrifice or vegetable sacrifice or human 
sacrifice, is yet, in a moral and spiritual sense, sacrificial 
from beginning to end. Every position, every aspect of 
every true Christian, east or west, or north or south, in 
church or out of church, is a sacrificial position. Every 
Christian is, in the only sense in which the word is used 
in the New Testament, " a priest of good things to come," 
to offer up " spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through 
Jesus Christ." Every domestic hearth, every holy and 
peaceful death-bed, every battle-field of duty, every arena 
of public or private life, is the altar from which the 
thoughts and energies of human souls and spirits ought 
to be forever ascending to the Father of all goodness. 
We are not to say that the use of the word " sacrifice " 
in this moral and spiritual sense is a metaphor or figure 
of speech, and that the use of the word in its gross and 
carnal sense is the substance. So far as there can be any 
sacrifice in the Christian Religion, it is the moral and 
spiritual sense which is the enduring substance ; the ma- 
terial and carnal sacrifice was but the passing shadow. 

V. But there may still arise an intermediate question, 
and that is — In what sense, over and above this com- 
plete and ideal sacrifice of our great Example, — over 
and above this essential sacrifice of our own daily lives, 
— in what sense is there any sacrifice in our outward 
worship, especially in the Holy Communion ? 

It is clear from what has been said, that in order to 
claim any share in the true Christian sacrifice, whether 

1 Eph. V. 2 ; compare Heb. ix. 14, x. 5-12. 



Chap. IV.] THE SACRIFICE OF THANKSGIVING. 81 

that rendered once for all by Jesus Christ, or that offered 
b}^ all good Christians in every hour of their lives, any 
sacrifice in our outward worship must belong to one or 
other of these three essential characteristics which we 
have mentioned, 1. Prayer and praise ; 2. Beneficence ; 
3. Self-devotion and self-dedication. 

1. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is certainly, 
as its name of " Eucharist " implies, as it is called in 
the English Communion Service, " a sacrifice of 

-, -, , .. ,, T'l* 1-1 '^^^ sacrifice 

praise and thanksgivmg. It is this winch makes of thanks- 
us say in a part of the service, which belongs to '^ ° 
its most ancient fragments, " It is very meet, right, and 
our bounden duty, that we should at all times and in all 
places, but chiefly now, give thanks to Thee." And in 
the ancient services of the Church, of which only a very 
slight trace remains in our own, or in any Church now, 
this thanksgiving was yet further expressed by the Chris- 
tian people bringing to the table the loaves of bread and 
the cups of wine, as samples of the fruits of the earth, for 
which every day and hour of their lives they wish to ex- 
press their gratitude. In the English Church this is in- 
dicated only by the few words where in the Prayer for 
the Church Militant we say, " We (i. e. not the clergy- 
man, but the people) offer unto Thee our oblations." In 
the Roman Church, this and this only was what was 
originally meant by the sacrifice, the host, or offering ; 
not a dead corpse, but the daily bread and wine of our 
earthly sustenance, offered not by the priest, but by the 
whole Christian congregation, as an expression of their 
thankfulness for the gracious kindness of God our Father 
in His beautiful and bountiful creation. 

It is true that in a later part of the service, the bread 
and wine are made to represent, as in the Last Supper, 
the Body and Blood, that is, the inmost spirit of the 
dying Redeemer. But at the time of the service when 



82 THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. [Chap. IV. 

in the Ancient Liturgies they were offered by the con- 
gregation and by the minister, and when they were called 
by the name of " sacrifice," or " victim," they represented 
only the natural products of the earth. It was as if the 
early Church had meant to say — "In Pagan and Jewish 
times there were human sacrifices, animal sacrifices. In 
Christian times this has ceased ; we wish to express to 
God our thankfulness for the daily bread that strengthens 
man's heart, and the wine that makes glad our hearts, 
and we express our gratitude by bringing our bread and 
wine for the common enjoyment and joint participation 
of the whole Christian community." 

2. This brings us to the second idea of sacrifice, that 

is, the rendering of acts of kindness to our brethren. 

The offerinp', the contribution of bread and 

The sacrifice . , . , ^ , • • i 

ofbenefi- wuic which formed the original sacrifice or of- 

cence. , , ^ , 

fering of the Eucharist, essentially partook of 
this idea, because the Eucharist in those early times was 
the common festive gathering of rich and poor in the 
same social meal, to which, as St. Paul enjoined, every 
one was to bring his portion. And further, with this 
practice, of which almost all traces have disappeared 
from all modern modes of administering the Lord's Sup- 
per, there was united from the earliest times the practice 
of collecting alms and contributions for the poor, at the 
time when our Christian communion and fellowship with 
each other is most impressed upon us. This is the prac- 
tice which is called, in the English Church and others, 
the offertory^ that is, the offerings, and which is urged 
upon us in the most moving passages that can be drawn 
from the Scriptures to stir up our Christian compassion. 
Here again, it is clear that the sacrifice, the offering, is 
made not by the priest, not by the minister, but by the 
congregation. It is not the clergy who give alms or of- 
ferings for the people, it is the people who bring alms or 



Chap. IV.] THE SACRIFICE OF SELF. 83 

offerings for one another or for the clergy. They make 
these sacrifices from their own substance, and in those 
sacrifices, so far as they come from a willing and bounti- 
ful heart, God is well pleased. 

3. The service of the Sacrament, in whatever form, 
expresses the sacrifice, the dedication of ourselves. Even 
if there were not words to set this forth, it could ,j,^^ sacrifice 
not be otherwise. Every serious communicant ^^ ^^^** 
does at least for the moment intend to declare his re- 
solution to lead a new life, and abandon his evil self. 
But in the English Reformed Church, this, the highest 
form of sacrifice, is, and was formerly much more than in 
the present form, brought out much more strongly than 
either in the Roman Church or in most other Protestant 
Churches. There is a solemn Prayer at the close of the 
service, in which it is said, " Here we offer and present 
unto Thee ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reason- 
able, holy, and lively sacrifice unto Thee.' But in the 
first Reformed Prayer Book of Edward VI., this true 
spiritual Protestant sacrifice was even still more forcibly 
expressed, for this dedication of ourselves was not as 
now, at the close of the service, but was introduced into 
the very heart of the Consecration Prayer, and made the 
chief and turning-point of the whole Liturgy. It was 
this on which so much stress was always laid by one of 
the profoundest scholars and the most devout men of our 
time', of whom one of his friends used to say that he was 
essentially a Liturgical Christian — the late Chevalier 
Bunsen. It is this which is present in the Scottish and 
the American Prayer Books, and, contrary to the usual 
opinion entertained of them, places them in the foremost 
rank of Protestant forms of devotion. In this Prayer it 
is evident that this the most important of the sacrifices 
of Christian Religion is not offered by the clergy for the 
people, but is the offering of the people by themselves ; 



84 THE EUCHARISTIC SACRIFICE. [Chap. IV. 

that when the clergyman says, " we offer," he speaks not 
of himself alone, but of himself only as one of them, with 
them, acting and speaking as their mouthpiece and rep- 
resentative, and they speaking and acting with him and 
for him. 

These are the three ideas, the three meanings of the 
sacrifice of the Eucharist. There is no other sense of 
sacrifice in the Eucharist than these three, and these 
three meanings absorb all others.^ No doubt the realities 
of sacrifice which they are intended to express are not 
there or in any outward sign, but in actual life, as when 
we speak of " a heavy sacrifice," of " a self-sacrifice," 
and the like. But the outward sign reminds us of the 
spiritual reality, and often in the Lord's Supper the two 
are brought together. 

When we see the bread and wine, the gifts of the par- 
ish or people, placed on the Table, this should remind us 
of the deep and constant thankfulness that we ought to 
feel from morning till evening for the blessings of our 
daily bread, of our happy lives, — perhaps even of our 
daily sorrows and sicknesses and trials. 

When we drop into the plate our piece of gold or silver 
or copper, as the case may be, this prelude of the Lord's 
Supper, slight though it be, should remind us that the 
true Christian Communion requires as its indispensable 
condition true Christian beneficence ; beneficence exer- 
cised not it may be at that moment, but always, and 
wherever we are, in the wisest, most effectual mode 
which Christian prudence and generosity can suggest. 

When we dedicate ourselves at the Table in remem- 
brance of Him who dedicated Himself for us — when we 

1 By a strange solecism the Eucharist is sometimes called "a commemorative 
sacrifice." This is as if the Waterloo banquet were called "a commemorative 
battle." Still the sacrifice of Christ which it commemorates is of the same 
kind as the sacrifice of the worshippers, viz. the sacrifice of a spotless life for 
the good of others. 



Chap. IV.] ITS EFFECTS. 85 

come to Him in order to be made strong with His 
strength — the act, the words, the remembrance should 
remind us that not then only, but in all times and in all 
places ought the sweet-smelling savor of our lives to be 
ascending towards Him who delights above all things in 
a pure, holy, self-sacrificing heart and will. 

Other ideas no doubt there are besides in the Eucha- 
rist. But so far as there is any idea of sacrifice, or thanks- 
giving, or offering to God, whether we take the English 
Prayer Book, or the older Liturgies out of which the 
Prayer Book is formed, it is the threefold idea which has 
been described, and not any of those imaginary sacrifices 
which, whether in the English or the Roman Church or 
in other churches, have been in modern days engrafted 
upon it. And this threefold sacrifice of prayer and praise, 
of generosity and of self -dedication, are in the Eucharist, 
because they pervade all Christian worship and life, of 
which the Eucharist is or ought to be the crowning rep- 
resentation and exemplification. 

Such are the ideas which, imperfectly and dispropor- 
tionately, but yet sufficiently, pervade the early service 
of the Eucharist. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE EEAL PRESEITCE. 

It might have been thought that in a religion like 
Christianity, which is distinguished from Judaism and 
from Paganism by its essentially moral and spiritual 
character, no doubt could have arisen on the material 
presence of its Founder. In other religions, the continu- 
ance of such a presence of the Founder is a sufficiently 
familiar idea. In Buddhism, the Lama is supposed still 
to be an incarnation of the historical Buddha. In Hin- 
duism, Vishnu was supposed to be from time to time 
incarnate in particular persons. In the Greek and Ro- 
man worship, though doubtless with more confusion of 
thought, the Divinities were believed to reside in the 
particular statues erected to their honor ; and the cells 
or shrines of the temples in which such statues were 
erected were regarded as " the habitations of the God." 
In Judaism, although here again with many protesta- 
tions and qualifications, the " Shechineh '' or glory of Je- 
hovah was believed to have resided, at au}^ rate till the 
destruction of the ark, within the innermost sanctuary 
of the Temple. But in Christianity the reverse of this 
was involved in the very essence of the religion. Not 
only was the withdrawal of the Founder from earth 
recognized as an incontestable fact and recorded as such 
in the ancient creeds, but it is put forth in the original 
documents as a necessary condition for the propagation 
of His religion. " It is expedient for you that I go awa3\" 
" If I go not away the Comforter will not come unto you." 



CiiAP. v.] EXAMPLES OF IT. 87 

Whenever the phraseology of the older religions is for a 
moment employed in the Christian Scriptures, it is at 
once lifted into a higher sphere. " The Temple " of the 
primitive Christian's object of worship, " the Altar " on 
which his praises were offered, was not in any outward 
building, but either in the ideal invisible world, or in the 
living frames and hearts of men. There are, indeed, 
numerous passages in the New Testament which speak 
of the continued presence of the Redeemer amongst His 
people. But these all are so evidently intended in a 
moral and spiritual sense that they have in fact hardly 
ever been interpreted in any other way. They all either 
relate to the communion which through His Spirit is 
maintained with the spirits of men, — as in the well- 
known texts, " I am with you always ; " " Where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in 
the midst of them ; " "I will come to you ; " " Come 
unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden," — or 
else they express that remarkable doctrine of Christianity, 
that the invisible God, the invisible Redeemer, can be 
best served and honored by the service and honor of 
those amongst men who most need it, whether by their 
characters or their suffering condition. '' He that re- 
ceiveth you receiveth me." " Inasmuch as ye have done 
it unto them, ye have done it unto Me." '' Ye visited 
Me." The Church — the Christian community — is " His 
body." None of these expressions have been permanently 
divorced from their high moral signification. No con- 
troversy concerning the mode of His presence in holy 
thoughts, or heroic lives, or afflicted sufferers, has rent 
the Church asunder. Stories more or less authentic, 
legends more or less touching, have represented these 
spiritual manifestations of the departed Founder in vivid 
forms to men. We have the well-known incident of the 
apparition of the Crucified to St. Francis on the heights 



88 THE REAL PRESENCE. [Chap. Y. 

of Layerna, which issued in the belief of the sacred 
wounds as received in his own person. We have the 
story of Benvenuto Cellini, who, meditating suicide in 
his dungeon, was deterred by a vision of the like appear- 
ance, from which he is said on waking to have carved 
the exquisite ivory crucifix subsequently transported on 
the shoulders of men from Barcelona to the Escurial, 
where it is now exposed to view in the great ceremonials 
of the Spanish Court. We have the conversion of the 
gay Presbyterian soldier. Colonel Gardiner, from a life 
of sin to a life of unblemished piety by the midnight ap- 
parition of the Cross and the gracious words, " I have 
done so much for thee, and wilt thou do nothing for 
Me ? " Or again, in connection with the other train of 
passages above cited, there is the beggar who received 
the divided cloak from St. Martin, and whom the saint 
saw in the visions of the night as the Redeemer showing 
it with gratitude to the angelic hosts. There is the leper 
who, when tended by St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and 
placed in her bed, appeared to be the Man of Sorrows, 
represented in the Yulgate rendering of the 53d chapter 
of Isaiah as a leper, " smitten of God and afflicted." 
There is the general Protestant sentiment as expressed 
in the beautiful poem of the Moravian Montgomery : — 

A poor -waTfaring man of grief 
Hath often passed me on my way: 
I did not pause to ask His name — 
Whither He went, or whence He came — 
Yet there was something in His eye 
That won my love, I know not why. 

But these stories, these legends, one and all, either con- 
fessedly exhibit the effect produced on the inward, not 
the outward, sense ; or, even if some should contend for 
their actual external reality, they are acknowledged to 
be rare, exceptional, transitory phenomena, arising out of 
and representing the inner spiritual truth which is above 
and beyond them. 



Chap. V.] EXAMPLES OF IT. 89 

How is it then, we may ask, that the Presence in the 
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper has ever been regarded 
in any other light ? How is it that the expressions in 
the New Testament which bear on this subject have been 
interpreted in a different manner from the precisely simi- 
lar expressions of which we have just spoken ? 

These expressions, one would suppose, had been suffi- 
ciently guarded in the original context. In the very dis- 
course in which Jesus Christ is represented as first using 
the terms which he afterwards represented in the out- 
ward forms of the parting meal, — speaking of moral con- 
verse with Himself under the strong figure of " eating His 
flesh and drinking His blood," — it is not only obvious to 
every reader that the literal sense was absolutely impossi- 
ble, but He himself concluded the whole argument by 
the words which ought to have precluded forever all 
question on the subject : " The flesh profiteth nothing ; 
it is the spirit that quickeneth." 

This assertion of the moral and spiritual character of 
the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, as everywhere 
else, has, as we shall see, never been wholly obliterated. 
The words of Ignatius, " Faith is the body of Christ," 
and " Charity is the blood of Christ ; " the words of 
Augustine, " Crede et manducasti," have ever found an 
echo in the higher and deeper intelligence of Christendom. 
But not the less, almost from the earliest times, and in 
almost every Church, a countercurrent of thought has 
prevailed, which has endeavored to confine the Re- 
deemer's Presence to the material elements of the sacred 
ordinance. We discover the first traces of it, although 
vaguely and indefinitely, in the prayer mentioned by 
Justin Martyr, and more or less transmitted through the 
ancient' liturgies, that the bread and wine "may become 
the Body and Blood." We trace it in the peculiar cere- 
monial sanctity with which not only the ordinance but 



90 THE REAL PRESENCE. [Chap. V. 

the elements came to be invested, during the first five 
centuries. We see it in the scruple which has descended 
even to our own time, which insists on fasting as a neces- 
sary condition of the reception ^ of the Communion, in 
flagrant defiance of the well-known circumstances not 
only of its original institution, but of all the details of its 
celebration during the whole of the Apostolic age. We 
see it again in the practice (which began at least as early 
as Infant Baptism, and which is still continued in the 
Eastern Church) of giving the Communion to uncon- 
scious infants. We see it finally in the innumerable 
regulations with which the rite is fenced about in the 
Roman Catholic, the Greek, and some of the Presbyterian 
Churches, as well as in the theories which have been 
drawn up to explain or to enforce the doctrine, and of 
which we will presently speak more at length. 

But in order to do this effectually, we must recur to 
the question suggested above : " Why is it that the spir- 
itual and obvious explanation, accepted almost without 
murmur or exception for all other passages where the 
Divine Presence is indicated, should have ever been re- 
jected in the case of the Eucharist, which, in its first in- 
stitution, had for its evident object the expression of that 
identical thought ? " 

It was a wise saying of Coleridge, " Presume yourself 

1 Perhaps, as this scruple in early times extended to both sacraments, it had 
not then, in regard to the Eucharist, assumed the gross corporeal form which it 
represents in later times. But it may be worth while to give as as instance, 
both of the force with which it was held, and the utter recklessness of the ex- 
ample and teaching of Christ Himself with which it was accompanied, the fol- 
lowing passage from even so eminent a man as Chrysostom : " They say I have 
given the Communion to some after they had eaten; but if I did this let my 
name he blotted out of the book of Bishops, and not written in the book of or- 
thodox faith. Lo ! if I did anything of the sort, Christ loill cast me out of His 
kingdom; but if they persist in urging this, and are contentious, let them also 
pass sentence against the Lord Himself who gave the Communion to the Apostles 
after supper^ [Ep. 128.) — The Life and Times of St. Chrysostom, by the 
Rev. W. Stephens. 



Chap. V.] REASONS FOR ITS REJECTION. 91 

ignorant of a writer's understanding, until you under- 
stand his ignorance ; " and so in regard to doctrines or 
ceremonies, however extravagant they may seem to us, it 
is almost useless to discuss them unless we endeavor to 
see how they have originated. 

I. First, then, it may be said that the material inter- 
pretation of this ordinance arose from a defect in the in- 
tellectual condition of the early recipients of 

^, . . . I'll • T • Misuse of 

Christianity, reachinp' back to its very begin- parabolical 

•^ ^ . language. 

ning. The parabolical and figurative language 
of the Gospel teaching was chosen designedly. There 
were many reasons for its adoption, some accidental, some 
permanent. It was the language of the East, and there- 
fore the almost necessary vehicle of thought for One who 
spoke as an Oriental to Orientals. It was the language 
best suited, then as always, to the rude, childlike minds 
to whom the Gospel discourses were addressed. It was 
the language in which profound doctrines were most likely 
to be preserved for future ages, distinct from the dogmatic 
or philosophical turns of speech, which, whilst aiming at 
forms which still endure for eternity, are often the most 
transitory of all, often far more transitory than the hum- 
blest tale or the simplest figure of speech. It was the 
sanction, for all time, of the use of fiction and poetry as 
a means of conveying moral and religious truth. In the 
Parables of the Prodigal Son and of the Rich Man and 
Lazarus, are wrapt up by anticipation the drama and 
romance of modern Europe. But with these immense 
and preponderating advantages of the parabolic style of 
instruction was combined one inevitable danger and draw- 
back. Great, exalted, general as is the poetic instinct of 
mankind, it yet is not universal or in all cases supreme. 
There is a prosaic element in the human mind which 
turns into matter of fact even the highest flights of gen- 
ius and the purest aspirations of devotion. And, strange 



92 THE EEAL PEESENCE. [Chap. V. 

to say, this prosaic turn is sometimes found side by side 
with the development of the parabolic tendency of which 
we have been speaking ; sometimes even in the same 
mind. Nothing can be more figurative and poetic than 
Bunyan's " Pilgrim ; " nothing more homely and pedan- 
tic than his " Grace Abounding." This union of the two 
tendencies is nowhere more striking than in the East, 
and in the first age of Christianity. It appeared in the 
Gospeh narrative itself. Appropriate, elevating, unmis- 
takable as were our Lord's figures, they were again and 
again brought down by his hearers to the most vulgar and 
commonplace meaning. The reply of the Samaritan wo- 
man at the well — the comment of the Apostles on the 
leaven of the Pharisees — the gross materialism of the peo- 
ple of Capernaum in regard to the very expressions which 
have in part been pressed into modern Eucharistic con- 
troversies, are well-known cases in point. The Talmud is 
one vast system of turning figures into facts. The pas- 
sionate exclamation of the Psalmist,," Thou hast saved me 
from among the horns of the unicorns," has been turned 
by the Rabbis into an elaborate chronicle of adventures. 
" Imagination and defect of imagination have each con- 
tributed to the result." ^ The whole history of early Mil- 
lenarianism implies the same incapacity for distinguish- 
ing between poetry and prose. The strange tradition of 
our Lord's words which Irenseus quoted from Papias, and 
which Papias quoted from the Apostles, in the full belief 
that they were genuine, is a sample of some such misun- 
derstood metaphor: 2 " The days shall come when each 
vine will grow with ten thousand boughs, each bough 
with ten thousand branches, each branch with ten thou- 
sand twigs, each twig with ten thousand bunches, each 
bunch with ten thousand grapes, each grape shall yield 

1 Gould's Legends of the Old Testament, p. vi. 

2 A striking explanation is given of this in Fhilochristus. 



Chap. V.] PREVALENCE OF MAGIC. 93 

twenty-five measures of wine." A statement lil^e this 
provokes only a smile, because it never struck root in the 
Church ; but it is not in itself more extravagant than the 
Sacramental theories built on figures not less evidently 
poetic. 

II. A second cause of the persistency of this ph^-sical 
liuiitation of the Sacramental doctrine lay in the fascina- 
tion exercised over the early centuries of our prevalence 
era by the belief in amulets and charms which ^f magic. 
the Christians inherited, and could not but inherit, from 
the decaying Roman Empire. In a striking passage in 
Cardinal Newman's " Essay on Development," written 
with the view of identifying the modern Church of Rome 
with the Church of the early ages, he shows, with all the 
power of his eloquence, and with a remarkable display of 
historical ingenuity, the apparent affinity between the 
magical rites which flooded Roman society during the 
three first centuries, and what seemed to be their counter- 
parts in the contemporary Christian Church. Doubtless 
much of this similarity was accidental ; much also was 
due to the vague terror inspired by a new and powerful 
religion. But much also was well grounded in the like- 
ness which the aspect of earl}^ Christianity inevitably 
bore to the influences by which it was surrounded. It 
was not mere hostility, nor mere ignorance, which saw in 
the exorcisms, the purifications, the mysteries of the 
Church of the first ages, the effects of the same vast wave 
of superstition which elsewhere produced the witches and 
soothsayers of Italy, the Mithraic rites of Persia, the 
strange charms and invocations of the Gnostics. In these 
likenesses it is a strange inversion, instead of recogniz- 
ing the influence of the perishing Empire on the rising 
Church, not only to insist on binding down the Church 
to the effete superstitions of the Empire, but to regard 
those superstitions as themselves the marks of a divine 
Catholicity. 



94 THE EEAL PEESENCE. [Chap. V. 

Another theologian, with a far truer historical insight, 
in noticing the like correspondence of the anarchical ten- 
dencies of that period Avith the regenerating elements of 
Christianity, has taken a juster view of their relation to 
each other. Whilst fully acknowledging that the Chris- 
tian movement to the external observer appeared to em- 
brace them both, he has endeavored not to confound the 
lower human accretions with Christianity itself, but to 
distinguish between them. " Christianity," says Dr. 
Arnold, " shared the common lot of all great moral 
changes ; perfect as it was in itself, its nominal adhe- 
rents were often neither wise nor good. The seemingly 
incongruous evils of the thoroughly corrupt society of 
the Roman Empire, superstition and scepticism, ferocity 
and sensual profligacy, often sheltered themselves under 
the name of Christianity ; and hence the heresies of the 
first age of the Christian Church." ^ 

The " sensual profligacy " and the " scepticism " no 
doubt remained amongst " the heresies ; " but the " fe- 
rocity " and the ''superstition" unfortunately lingered 
in the Church itself. The " ferocity " developed itself 
somewhat later in the hordes of monks that turned the 
council-hall at Ephesus into a den of thieves, and stained 
the streets of Alexandria with the blood of Hypatia. 
The " superstition " clove to the sacramental ordinances, 
and too often converted the emblems of life and light 
into signs of what most Christians now would regard as 
mere remnants of sortilege and sorcery. The stories of 
sacramental bread carried about as a protection against 
sickness and storm can deserve no other name ; and it 
was not without reason that in later times the sacred 
words of consecration, which often degenerated into a 
mere incantation, became the equivalent for a conjurer's 
trick. And to this was added a peculiar growth of the 

1 Fragment on the Church, pp. 85, 86. 



Chap. V.] PREVALENCE OF MAGIC. 95 

third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, which 
was gradually consolidated amidst the lengthening shad- 
ows of the falling Empire, — the sacerdotal claims of 
the Christian clergy. In themselves these clerical pre- 
tensions had no necessary connection with the material 
view of the Sacramental rites. The administration of 
Baptism is not regarded even by Roman Catholics as an 
exclusive privilege of the clergy. In early times, in- 
deed, it was practically confined to the bishops, but this 
was soon broken through, and in later ages it has in the 
Roman Church been viewed as the right, and even in 
some cases as the duty, of the humblest layman or lay- 
woman. But the celebration of the Eucharist a-lthough 
there is nothing in the terms of its original institution to 
distinguish it in this respect from the other sacrament, 
has yet been regarded as a peculiar function of the 
priesthood. In the second century, like that other sacra- 
ment, its administration depended on the permission of 
the bishops, yet when emancipated from their control, 
unlike Baptism, it did not descend beyond the order of 
presbyters, and has ever since been bound up with their 
dignity and power. Even here there can be found in 
the Roman Catholic Church those who maintain that 
there is no essential and necessary connection between 
their office and the validity of the Sacrament. But this 
has not been the general view ; and it is impossible not 
to suppose that the belief in the preternatural powers of 
the priesthood, and the belief in the material efficacy 
of the sacramental elements, have acted and reacted upon 
each other, culminating in the extraordinary hyperbole 
which regards the priest as the maker of his Creator, 
and varying with the importance which has been as- 
cribed to the second order of the Christian clergy, and 
through them to the hierarchy generally. 

III. These two tendencies — the early tendency to 



96 THE REAL PRESENCE. [Chap. Y. 

mistake parable for prose, and the early superstitious re- 
gard for external objects — are sufficient to account for 
The spirit- ^^^ lower forms of the irrational theories re- 
uaiTiew. spectiug the Sacrament of the Eucharist. But 
there is a third cause of a nobler kind which will lead us 
gradually and naturally to the consideration of the other 
side of the question. It is one of the peculiarities of 
this Sacrament that partly through its long history, 
partly from the original grandeur of its first conception, 
it suggests a great variety of thoughts which cling to it 
with such tenacity as almost to become part of itself. 
To disentangle these from the actual forms which they 
encompass — to draw precisely the limits where the out- 
ward ends and the inward begins, where the transitory 
melts into the eternal and the earthly into the heavenly 
— is beyond the power of many, beside the wish of 
most. An example may be taken from another great 
ordinance which belongs to the world no less than to the 
Church, and which by more than half Christendom is 
regarded as a sacrament — Marriage. How difficult it 
would be to analyze the ordinary mode of feeling re- 
garding the ceremony which unites two human beings in 
the most sacred relations of life ; how many trains of as- 
sociation from Jewish patriarchal traditions, from the 
usages of Imperial Rome, from the metaphors of Apos- 
tolic teaching, from the purity of Teutonic and of Eng- 
lish homes, have gone to make up the joint sanctity of 
that solemn moment, in which the reality and the form 
are by the laws of God and man blended in indissoluble 
union. Even if there are mingled with it customs which 
had once a baser significance ; yet still even these are 
invested by the feeling of the moment with a meaning 
above themselves, which envelops the whole ceremonial 
with an atmosphere of grandeur that no inferior associa- 
tions can dispel or degrade. Something analagous is the 



Chap. V.] THE SPIRITUAL VIEW. 97 

mixture of ideas wbicli has sprung up round the Eucha- 
rist. It has, by the very nature of the case, two sides : 
its visible material aspect, of a ceremony, of a test, of 
a mystic chain by which the priest brings the Creator 
down to earth, and attaches his followers to himself and 
his order ; and its noble spiritual aspect of a sacred mem- 
ory, of a joyous thanksgiving, of a solemn self-dedication, 
of an upward aspiration towards the Divine and the Un- 
seen. 

We have already spoken of the legends which have 
represented in an outward form the spiritual presence of 
the Founder in the world at large. We have also spoken 
of those which have represented the same idea in con- 
nection with the sufferers or the heroes of humanity. 
There are also legends on which we may for a moment 
dwell as representing in a vivid form both the baser and 
the loftier view of the same idea in the Eucharist. The 
lowest and most material conception of this Presence is 
brought before us in the legend of the miracle of Bol- 
sena, immortalized by the fresco of Raphael, in wdiich 
the incredulous priest was persuaded by the falling of 
drops of blood from the consecrated wafer at the altar of 
that ancient Etruscan city. Such stories of bleeding 
wafers were not unfrequent in the Middle Ages, and it 
is not impossible that they originated in the curious nat- 
ural phenomenon, which was described in connection 
with the appearance of the cholera in Berlin — the dis- 
coloration produced by the appearance of certain small 
scarlet insects which left on the bread which they 
touched the appearance of drops of blood. Some such 
appearance, real or supposed, suggested, probably, the 
material transformation of the elements into the flesh 
and blood of the outward frame of the Founder. This 
is the foundation of the great festival of Corpus Christi, 
which from the thirteenth century has in the Latin 



98 THE EEAL PE£SE^XE. [Chap. T. 

Cliurcli commemorated the miracle of Bolseiia, and with 
it the doctrine supposed to be indicated therein. Another 
class of legend rises somewhat higher. It is that of a ra- 
diant child appearing on the altar, such as is described in 
the lives of Edward the Confessor, and engraved on the 
screen which incloses his shrine in Westminster Abbey. 
Leofric. Earl of Mercia, with his famous Countess Go- 
diva, was believed to have been present with the King, 
and to have seen it also. This apparition, '' pure and 
bright as a spirit," is evidentl}^ something more refined 
than the identification of the wafer and wine with the 
mere flesh and blood of the human body of a full-grown 
man, and, if both stories were taken literally, each would 
be inconsistent with the other. A third incident of the 
kind leads us higher yet, and is the more remarkable 
from its indicating the doctrine of a Eucharistic Presence 
in a Church which most Eno^lish Hio-h Churchmen de- 
spise as altogether outside the pale of Sacramental 
graces. It has been told in various places ; amongst 
others, in the twenty-first edition ^ of the interesting 
reminiscences of Scottish Character, by the venerable 
Dean Ramsay, how a half-witted boy in Forfarshire after 
long entreaties persuaded the minister to give him what 
he called his Father's bread, and returned home, exclaim- 
ing, " Oh, I have seen the j^retty man I " and died that 
night in excess of rapture. Xo savor or tradition of 
Transubstantiation had invaded the brain of this poor 
child. Xo Presbyterian would admit the external real- 
ity of the vision. No Catholic or High Episcopalian 
would acknowledge the reality of that Presbyterian Sac- 
rament. But, nevertheless, the purely Protestant idea 
of a spiritual communion had such an effect as to pro- 
duce an impression analogous, however superior, to the 
visions of the Priest of Bolsena or the Saxon King. No 
serious confusion can arise so long as we hold to the 

1 Vol. i. 239. 



Chap. V.] THE SPIRITUAL VIEW. 99 

obvious trutli that outward appearances can never be 
more than signs of spiritual and moral excellence ; and 
that even were the Saviour Himself present in visible 
form before us, that visible presence would be useless to 
us, except as a token of the Divine Spirit within, and 
would have no effect on the human soul unless the soul 
consciously received a moral impulse from it. 

Such are the various elements which have gone to 
make up the sentiment of Christendom on a subject in 
itself so simple, but complicated by the confluence of the 
heterogeneous streams of irrelevant argument, misapplied 
metaphor, and genuine devotion. How its more material 
aspect deepened as time rolled on, we have already indi- 
cated. The long mediaeval controversy was at last closed 
by the definition of Transubstantiation in the fourth 
Council of Lateran, and this was followed by the stories 
already cited of the miracle of Bolsena, and other like in- 
cidents, which finally produced what may be called the 
popular belief of the Roman Church, that the bread and 
wine are, after consecration, neither more nor less than 
the body and blood that was crucified on Calvary. 

But it is interesting, and for our present purpose in- 
structive, to observe how behind this popular belief, and 
even in some of the forms which most directly arose out 
of it, there was yet a constant turning to the higher and 
more spiritual view. Not only had Berengar and Abe- 
lard protested against the grosser conceptions, not only 
had the mighty Hildebrand vacillated in his orthodoxy, 
but the very statement of " Transubstantiation," properly 
understood, contained a safety-valve, through which the 
more earthly and dogmatic expressions of the doctrine 
evaporate and melt into something not very unlike the 
purest Protestantism. The word is based, as its compo- 
nent parts sufiBciently indicate, on the scholastic distinc- 
tion between " Substance " and " Accidents," a distinc- 



100 THE REAL PRESENCE. [Chap. V. 

tion which has long since vanished out of every sound 
system either of physics or metaphysics, ^ but which at 
the time must have been like a Deus ex maeliind to re- 
lieve the difficulties of theologians struggling to maintain 
their conscience and sense of truth against the prevailing 
superstitions of the age. Every external object was then 
believed to consist of two parts — ^the accidents^ which 
represented the solid visible framework, alone cognizable 
by the senses, and the substance^ which was the inward 
essence or Platonic idea, invisible to mortal eye, incom- 
municable to mortal touch. The popular notion of the 
Roman Catholic doctrine is, no doubt, that the change 
believed to be effected in the Eucharist is not of " the 
substance," but of " the accidents." This would seem 
(on the whole) the view of Aquinas, who maintains, not, 
indeed, that the accidents of the bread and wine are 
changed, but that the substance is changed, not merety 
into the substance^ but into the accidents of the body and 
blood.2 This is clear not only from the legends of the 
bleeding wafers and the like, but from the common lan- 
guage used as to the portentous miracle by which the 
visible earthly elements are supposed to be transformed 
into something invisible and celestial. But the true 
scholastic doctrine is wholly inconsistent with any such 
supposition. The " substance " spoken of is not the 
material substance, but the impalpable idea. The mira- 
cle, if it can be so called in any sense of that much-vexed 
word, consists in the transformation of one invisible ob- 
ject into another invisible object. The senses have no 

1 The connection of these materialist views of the Sacrament with the scho- 
lastic distinction between "substance" and "accidents" has been well pointed 
out by two distinguished scholars, who, whenever they apply themselves to theo- 
logical subjects, speak with a lucidity and an authority which need no addition, 
— Bishop Thirlwall in his Charge of 1854 {Remains, 1. 238-46, 249-51), and 
Dean Liddell in his sermon entitled " There am I in the midst." 

2 Lib. iv. Sent. Dist. viii. qu. 2: quoted in Bishop Thirlwall's Charge of 1854. 
{Remains, i. 250. ) 



Chap. V.] THE SPIRITUAL VIEW. 101 

part or lot in tlie transaction, on one side or the other. 
Even the " substance " ^ into which the ideal essence of 
the bread and wine is transformed is not the gross cor- 
poreal matter of the bones and sinews and fluid of the 
human frame, but the ideal essence of that frame. It is, 
probably, not without design that Cardinal Newman, in 
speaking of the word " substance," lays down so anx- 
iously and precisely that " the greatest philosophers 
know nothing at all about it." The doctrine, thus con- 
ceived and thus stated in one of the decrees of Trent, is, 
as the Bishop of St. David's ^ well expresses it, the asser- 
tion that " one metaphysical entity is substituted for an- 
other, equally beyond the grasp of the human mind, and 
equally incapable of any predicate by which it may be- 
come the subject of an intelligible proposition." It is 
evident that under cover of a word which either means 
nothing or something which no one can understand, the 
whole idealistic philosophy, the whole rationalistic the- 
ology, the whole Biblical and spiritual conceptions of the 
Eucharist might steal in. 

It is difficult, but it is instructive, to track out the 
course of this Protean logomachy. The confusion per- 
vades not only the words of the doctrine, but the forms 
which have gathered round it. Whilst some of these 
forms have intensified the gross popular belief, and are 
only explicable on the supposition of its truth, — such as 
the minute precautions concerning the mode of disposing 
of the sacred elements, or of guarding them against the 
trivial incidents of every-day occurrence, — on the other 
hand, some of them are only defensible on the hypothesis 

1 The ambiguity which in the Roman statement attaches to the word " sub- 
stance," in the Anglican statement attaches no less to the word "real." " Noth- 
ing in this question can depend on the expression Beal Presence ; everything on 
the sense which is attached to it."— Bishop Thirlwall's Charge, 1854. {Be- 
mains, i. 2i0.) 

2 Charge, 1854. {Remains, i. 250.) 



102 THE EEAL PEESENCE. [Chap. V. 

of the more spiritual view to which we have just ad- 
verted. This is even more apparent in the mediaeval 
and Western than in the Patristic and Oriental Church. 
We have seen that in the earlier ages it was the cus- 
tom, as it still is in Eastern worship, to give the Com- 
munion to infants. This custom since the thirteenth 
century has in the Latin Church been entirely proscribed. 
Partl}^, no doubt, this may have arisen from the fear — 
increasing with the increase of the superstitious venera- 
tion for the actual elements — lest the wine, or as it was 
deemed the sacred blood, should be spilt in the process ; 
but partly also it arose from the repugnance which the 
more restless, rational, and reforming West felt against 
an infant's unconscious participation in a rite which, ac- 
cording to any reasonable explanation of its import, could 
not be considered as useful to any except conscious and 
intelligent agents. In many of its aspects, no doubt, 
the same might be said of Baptism. But there it was at 
least possible to regard the rite in relation to children as 
equivalent to an enrolment in a new society — a dedica- 
tion to a merciful Saviour — a hope that they would lead 
the rest of their lives according to this beginning. Not 
so the Eucharist. The Eucharist is either a purely moral 
act, or else it is entirely mechanical. If viewed as a 
charm, as a medicine, it would be equally applicable to 
conscious or unconscious persons, to children or to full- 
grown men. But if viewed as an act of the will, Infant 
Communion became an obvious incongruity, and accord- 
ingly, in spite of the long and venerable traditions which 
sustained the usage, it was deliberately abandoned by 
the Latin Church ; and we may be sure that the enlight- 
ened sense of Christian Europe will forever prevent its 
rehabilitation. The rejection of Infant Communion is 
inteUigible on the principle that the efficacy of the Eu- 
charist is a moral influence — it is totally indefensible on 



Chap. V.] THE SPIRITUAL VIEW. 103 

the principle whether of Roman or Anglican divines, 
who maintain its efficacy, irrespectively of any spiritual 
thought or reflection in the recipient. Another change 
of the same kind in Western Christendom is equally open 
to this construction. One of the most common charges 
of Protestants against the Church of Rome is its with- 
holding of the cup from the laity. The expression is not 
quite accurate. The cup is not absolutely withheld from 
laymen, inasmuch as it was the privilege of the Kings of 
France, and also is still given in cases of illness ; and its 
retention is not from the laity as such, but from all, 
whether priests or laymen, that are not actually officiat- 
ing. This, properly understood, places the custom on 
what is no doubt its true basis. It began probably, like 
the denial of the Communion to infants, from an appre- 
hension lest the chalice should be spilt in going to and 
fro, or lest the sacred liquid should adhere to the beards 
or moustaches of the bristling warriors of the Middle 
Ages. But it was justified on a ground which is fatal to 
the localization of the Divine Presence in the earthly 
elements. It was maintained that the communicant re- 
ceived the benefits of the sacrament as completely if he 
partook of one of the two species as if he partook of both. 
This was at once to assert that the efficacy of the sacra- 
ment did not depend on the material elements. It was 
the same revolution with respect to the Eucharist that 
the almost contemporary substitution of sprinkling for 
immersion was in Baptism. Such a change in the mat- 
ter of either sacrament can only be justified on the prin- 
ciple that the matter is but of small importance — that 
the main stress must be on the spirit. And when to 
this alteration of form was yet further added, in explana- 
tion of it, a distinct scholastic theory that each of the 
two species contained the substance of both, the doctrine 
of the supreme indifference of form was consolidated, so 



104 THE EEAL PRESENCE. [Chap. V. 

far as the metaphysical subtleties and barbarous philos- 
ophy of that age would allow, into a separate dogma. 

If the fine lines of Thomas Aquinas in his famous 
hymn, " Lauda Sion Salvatorem," have any sense at all, 
they mean that the body of Christ is not contained in 
the bread, nor the blood in the wine, but that something- 
different from each is contained in both ; and what that 
something is must either be a purely spiritual Presence 
in the hearts of the faithful or else the presence of two 
physical bodies existing on every altar at the same, mo- 
ment, which is maintained by no one. 

When the Bohemian Utraquists fought with desperate 
energy to recover the use of the cup, they were in one 
sense doubtless fighting the cause of the laity against the 
clergy, of old Catholic latitude against modern Roman 
restrictions. But with that obliquity of purpose which 
sometimes characterizes the fiercest ecclesiastical strug- 
gles, the Roman Church, on the other hand, was fight- 
ing the battle of an enlarged and liberal view of the 
Sacraments against a fanatical insistance on the necessity 
of a detailed conformity to ancient usage. 

Of a piece with these indications of a more reason- 
able view is the constant under-song of better spirits 
from the earliest times, which maintains with regard to 
both Sacraments, not only that, in extreme cases, they 
may be dispensed with, but that their essence is to be 
had without the form at all. The bold doctrine of Wall 
— the great Anglican authority of Infant Baptism — 
that Quakers may be regarded as baptized, because they 
have the substance of that of which baptism is the sign, 
is justified by the maxim of the early Church that the 
martyrdom of the unbaptized is itself a baptism. And 
in like manner, the most Protestant of all the statements 
on this subject in the English Prayer Book is itself taken 
from an earlier rubric to the same effect in the mediaeval 



Chap. V.] THE SPIEITUAL VIEW. 105 

Church : " If a man .... by any just impediment do 
not receive the Sacrament of Christ's body and blood, 
the Church shall instruct him that " [if he fulfil the 
moral conditions of Communion], "7ie doth eat and drink 
the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ to his soul's 
health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his 
mouthy This principle is asserted in the Sarum Manual, 
which less distinctly, but not less positively, allowed of 
the possibility of spiritual communion when actual re- 
ception of the elements was impossible. ^ 

Such a concession is in fact the concession of the whole 
principle. In the more stringent view, the outward re- 
ception of the two Sacraments was regarded as so ab- 
solutely necessary to salvation, that not even the inno- 
cence of the new-born babe nor the blameless life of 
Marcus Aurelius were allowed to plead against their lack 
of the outward form of one or the other. But the mo- 
ment that the door is opened for the moral consideration 
of what is due to mercy and humanity, the whole fabric 
of the strict Sacramental system vanishes, and reason, 
justice, and charity step in to take their rightful places. 

IV. We have thus far endeavored to show how in the 
vitals of the most mechanical theory of the Sacraments 
there was wrapt up a protest in favor of the most spirit- 
ual view. Let us for a moment take the reverse side of 
the picture, and show how, in the heart of the early 
Protestant Church, there has always been wrapt up a 
lurking tenderness for the purely outward and material 
view. 

When the shock of the Reformation came, next after 
the Pope's Supremacy and the doctrine of Justification 
by Faith — and in a certain sense more fiercely even 
than either of these, because it concerned a tangible and 
visible object — the battle of the Churches was fought 
over the Sacrament of the Altar. 

1 Blunt's Annotated Prayer Book, p. 291. 



106 THE REAL PRESENCE. [Chap. V. 

Each of the Reformers on the Continent made some 
formidable inroad into the usages or the theories which 
the Roman Church had built up on the primitive ordi- 
nance. Yet they all retained something of the old scho- 
lastic theory, or the old material sentiment on the exter- 
nal surroundings of the grand spiritual conception of the 
Sacrament. The scholastic confusion between substance 
and accident continued in full force. Luther, in 

Luther, . . . ' 

most points the boldest, the most spiritual of 
all, on this point was the most hesitating and the most 
superstitious. Under the new name of " Consubstantia- 
tion," the ancient dogma of " Transubstantiation " re- 
ceived a fresh lease of life. The unchanged form of the 
Lutheran altar, with crucifix, candles, and wafer, testi- 
fied to the comparatively unchanged doctrine of the Lu- 
theran sacrament. Melanchthon, Bucer, Calvin, all trem- 
bled on the same inclined slope ; all labored to retain 
some mixture of the physical with the purer idea of the 
metaphysical, moral efficacy of the Eucharistic rite. One 
only, the Reformer of Zurich, " the clear-headed and in- 
. ^. trepid Zwingli,"^ in treating of this subject, an- 
ticipated the necessary conclusion of the whole 
matter. But his doctrine prevailed in England and on 
the Continent wherever his influence extended, and in 
the Roman Church has not been altogether inoperative. 
In language, perhaps too austerely exact, but transpar- 
ently clear, he recognized the full Biblical truth, that 
the operations of the Divine Spirit on the soul can only 
be through moral means ; and that the moral influence 
of the Sacrament is chiefly or solely through the po- 
tency of its unique commemoration of the most touch- 
ing and transcendent event in history. This is the 
view, sometimes in contempt called Zwinglian, which in 

1 See the excellent account of Zwingli, Bampton Lectures on the Communion 
of Saints, by the Eev. H, B. Wilson, p. 135. 



Chap. V.] THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 107 

substance became the doctrine of all the " Reformed 
Churches " ] properly so called, and in a more or less de- 
gree of all Protestant Churches. It is well known how 
vehemently Luther struggled against it. In the princely 
hall of the old castle which crowns the romantic town 
of Marburg took place the stormy discussion in which 
Luther and Zwingli, in the presence of the Landgrave 
of Hesse, for two long days met face to face, in the vain 
hope of convincing one another, with the hope, not 
equally vain, of at least parting in friendship. Every- 
thing which could be said on behalf of the dogmatic, 
coarse, literal interpretation of the institution was urged 
with the utmost vigor of word and gesture by the stub- 
born Saxon. Everything which could be said on behalf 
of the rational, refined, spiritual construction was urged 
with a union of the utmost acuteness and gentleness by 
the sober-minded Swiss. Never before or since have the 
two views been brought into such close collision. 

V. We now turn to the relation of the two conflicting 
tendencies in England. It will not be surpris- Engnsh 
ing to any one who has followed the essentially ^^^^''^• 
mixed aspect of the English character and of English 
institutions, the gradual development of our religious, 
side by side with the equally gradual development of 
our political, ordinances and ideas — that the conflict of 
thought, visible as we have seen even in the compact fab- 
ric both of the Roman and the Presbyterian Churches, 
should have left yet deeper traces in the Church of Eng- 
land. During the reign of Henry VIII. this hesitation 
was almost a necessary consequence of tlie laborious ef- 
forts by which King and people rose out of their own 
natural prepossessions into a higher region : — 

Now half appeared 
The tawny lion, pawing to get free 
His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds, 
And rampant shakes his brinded mane. 

1 /. e., the Swiss, South German, French, and English Churches. 



108 THE REAL PRESENCE. [Chap. V. 

No doubt the ancient doctrine maintained its place dur- 
ing those eventful years. But Tyndale had not spoken 
and written in vain ; and already by the Royal theolo- 
gian himself was issued one of those statesmanlike docu- 
ments in which the true doctrine of the relation of form 
to spirit is set forth with a clearness of exposition and 
of thought that has never been surpassed.^ The con- 
tradictions and vacillations in the growth of Cranmer's 
opinions on this point are well known. Nothing can be 
more natural — nothing, we may add, more creditable to 
his honesty and discrimination — than that he should 
have felt his way gradually and carefully through the 
labyrinth from which he had been slowly emerging. In 
Edward VI. 's reign, the influence of the Reformer of 
Zurich at last made itself felt in every corner of the ec- 
clesiastical movement of England ; ^ " De coen^ omnes 
Angli rect^ sentiunt," writes Hooper to his Swiss friends 
in 1549 ; " Satisfecit piis Eduardi reformatio," writes 
Bullinger. At length Cranmer's agreement with the 
Helvetic Confession of 1536 was complete. " Canter- 
bury," writes a friend to Bullinger in 1548, " contrary 
to expectation, maintained your opinion. It is all over 
with the Lutherans." Ridley's last sentiments, though 
guardedly expressed, were at the core the same as Cran- 
mer's. It was its persistent adhesion to the Swiss doc- 
trine on the whole which made the Anglican Church, in 
spite of its episcopal government and liturgical worship, 
to be classed not amongst the Lutheran but amongst the 
Reformed Churches. 

Yet still the mediaeval, or, if we will, the Lutheran 
element remained too strongly fixed to be altogether dis- 
lodged. At the distance of two centuries, Swift could 
regard his own Church as represented by Martin rather 

1 Froude's History, iii. 367. 

2 See Cardwell's Two Liturgies, Pref. pp. 26-28. 



Chap. V.] THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 109 

than by Jack. Lutheranism was, in fact, the exact shade 
which colored the mind of EUzabeth, and of the divines 
who held to her. Her altar was precisely the Lutheran 
altar ; her opinions were represented in almost a continu- 
ous line by one divine after another down to our own 
time. But they were always kept in check by the strong 
Zwinglian atmosphere Avhich pervaded the original the- 
ology of the English Church, and which has been its pre- 
vailing hue ever since. Into this more reasonable the- 
ology almost every expression that has been since used 
(till quite our modern times) might be resolved. But 
in the earlier years of the reign of Elizabeth, not only the 
Queen herself, but a very large portion of the English 
clergy, who had been brought up in the Roman doctrine, 
still held opinions scarcely distinguishable from it. Thus 
it came to pass that, in the spirit of compromise and con- 
ciliation which pervaded all their work, the framers of 
the formularies, though determined to keep the Zwinglian 
doctrine intact, yet often so expressed it as to make it 
look as much like Lutheranism as possible. Elizabeth 
herself, when cross-questioned in her sister's time, evaded 
the doctrine rather than stated it distinctly. There are 
still to be seen rudely carved on a stone under the pulpit 
of the Church' of Walton on Thames the lines in which 
she gave the answer that to many a devout spirit in the 
English Church has seemed a sufficient reply to all ques- 
tionings on the subject : — 

Christ was the Word and spake it, 
He took the bread and brake it; 
And what the Word doth make it 
That I believe and take it. 

The Articles as finally drawn up in her reign exhibit this 
same reluctance to exclude positively one or other of the 
two views. The 28th Article, as originally written in 
Edward VI.'s time, had expressed the exact Helvetic doc- 



110 THE REAL PRESENCE. [Chap. V. 

trine. A sentence was added in which, amidst a crowd 
of Zwinglian expr,essions, one word — "given" — was 
inserted which, though not necessarily Lutheran or 
Roman, certainly lent itself to that meaning. The 29th 
Article, on " the wicked which eat not the Body of 
Christ in the use of the Lord's Supper," which was 
added in Elizabeth's time, was obviously meant to con- 
demn the doctrine that there is any reception possible 
but a moral reception. But — not to speak of the 
slight wavering, at its close, of the positiveness of its 
opening — this very Article, though authorised by the 
canons of 1603, and by implication in the Caroline Act 
of Uniformity in 1662, does not occur in the edition of 
the Articles (w^hich are here only 38 in number) au- 
thorized by the 13th of Elizabeth. That is to say, this 
most Protestant of all the Articles is confirmed by what 
many regard as the authority of the Church in Convoca- 
tion, and by the legislature of Charles 11. 's time, but it 
was not confirmed by the Act which first imposed the 
Articles, and which had for its object the admission of 
Presbyterian orders. 

The Catechism, which originally contained no exposi- 
tion of the sacraments at all, in the time of James I. re- 
ceived a supplement, in which for one moment the highly 
rhetorical language of the Fathers and Schoolmen is 
strongly pressed : " The Body and Blood of Christ are 
verily and indeed taken and received in the Lord's Sup- 
per." But then the qualifying clause comes in, " by the 
faithful ; " and these very words are further restricted as 
describing, not the bread and wine, but the " thing signi- 
fied thereby." The strong denial of " the Real and bod- 
ily, the Real and essential Presence," which was in Ed- 
ward VI.'s time incorporated in the 28th Article, and 
afterwards appended to the Prayer Book in his Declara- 
tion of Kneeling, was in Elizabeth's omitted altogether, 



Chap. V.] THE ENGLISH CHURCH. Ill 

and when revived in Charles II.'s time was altered to 
meet the views of the then predominant High Church 
divines ; though the Declaration itself was restored at the 
request of the Puritan party. But the words " real and 
essential Presence there being " were omitted, and the 
words '' corporal presence " substituted for them. The 
consequence is, that while the adoration of the elements 
or of " any corporal presence of Christ's natural flesh and 
blood " is strictly forbidden as idolatrous, the worship of 
" any real and essential presence there being of Christ's 
natural flesh and blood "is by implication not condemned 
by this Declaration of the Rubric. 

Most characteristic of all is the combination of the two 
tendencies in the words of the administration of the 
Eucharist. In the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., 
which retained as much as possible of the ancient forms 
both in belief and usage, the words were almost the same 
as now in the Roman Church, and as formerly in the 
Sarum Missal : " The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ 
which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul 
unto everlasting life." In the second Prayer Book of 
Edward VI., when the Swiss influence had taken com- 
plete possession of the English Reformers, this clause 
w^as dropped, and in its place was substituted the words, 
'' Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for 
thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by faith with thanks- 
giving." In the Prayer Book of Elizabeth, and no doubt 
by her desire, the two clauses were united, and so have 
remained ever since. " Excellently well done was it," 
says an old Anglican divine,^ " of Queen Elizabeth and 
her Reformers, to link both together ; for between the 
Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, and the 
Sacramental Commemoration of His Passion, there is so 
inseparable a league as subsist they cannot, except they 

1 L' Estrange, Alliance of Divine Offices, p. 219. 



112 THE EEAL PRESENCE. [Chap. V. 

consist,''^ "Excellently well done was it," we may add, 
to leave this standing proof, in tlie very heart of our 
most solemn service, that the two views which have long 
divided the Christian Church are compatible with joint 
Christian communion — so that here at least Luther and 
Zwingli might feel themselves at one ; that the Puritan 
Edward and the Roman Mar}^ might, had they lived un- 
der the Latitudinarian though Lutheran Elizabeth, have 
thus far worshipped together. 

What has occurred in the Church of England is an ex- 
ample of what might occur and has occurred in other 
churches, not so pointedly perhaps, but not less really. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST. 

It may be necessary, in order to justify and explain 
the preceding chapter, to inquire into the Biblical mean- 
ing of the expressions "the body" and " the blood of 
Christ," both as they occur in St. John's Gospel, without 
express reference to the Eucharist, and as they occur in 
connection with the Eucharist in the three Gospels and 
the Epistles. 

I. The words in St. John's Gospel (vi. 53-56) are as 
follows : " Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, 
and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. gt. John's 
Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, ^^^p^^- 
hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up at the last day. 
For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink in- 
deed. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, 
dwelleth in Me, and I in him." 

It is said that a great orator once gave this advice to a 
younger speaker who asked his counsel : " You are more 
anxious about words than about ideas. Remember that 
if you are thinking of words you will have no ideas ; but 
if you have ideas, words will come of themselves." ^ That 
is true as regards ordinary eloquence. It is no less true 
in considering the eloquence of religion. In theology, in 
religious conversation, in religious ordinances, we ought 
as much as possible to try to get beneath the phrases we 

1 Mr. Pitt to Lord Wellesley. Reminiscences of Archdeacon Sinclair, p. 273. 



114 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

use, and never to rest satisfied with the words, however 
excellent, until we have ascertained what we mean by 
them. Thus alone can we fathom the depth of such 
phrases ; thus alone can we protect ourselves against the 
superstition of forms and the " idols of the market-place ; " 
thus alone can we grasp the realities of which words and 
forms are the shadow. 

The passage under consideration in St. John's Gospel 
at once contains this principle, and also is one of the 
most striking examples of it. It is one of those startling 
expressions used by Christ to show us that He intends to 
drive us from the letter to the spirit, by which He shat- 
ters the crust and shell in order to force us to the kernel. 
It is as if He said : " It is not enough for you to see the 
outward face of the Son of man, or hear His outward 
words, to touch His outward vesture. That is not Him- 
self. It is not enough that you walk by His side, or hear 
others talk of Him, or use terms of affection and endear- 
ment towards Him. You must go deeper than this : you 
must go to His very inmost heart, to the very core and 
marrow of His being. You must not onl}^ read and un- 
derstand, but you must mark, learn, and inwardly digest, 
and make part of yourselves, that which alone can be 
part of the human spirit and conscience." ^ It expresses, 
with regard to the life and death of Jesus Christ, the 
same general truth as is expressed when St. Paul says : 
" Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ " — that is, clothe 
yourselves with His spirit as with a garment. Or again : 
'' Let the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus." 
It is the general truth which our Lord himself expressed : 
'•' I am the Vine ; ye are the branches." In all the mean- 
ing is the same ; but, inasmuch as the figure of speech of 
which we are now speaking is stronger, it also expresses 

1 This is well put in an early sermon of Arnold on this passage, vol. i. Ser- 
mon XXIV. 



Chap. VI.] THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 115 

more fully and forcibly what the others express gener- 
ally. It is the figure, not altogether strange to Western 
ears, but more familiar to the Eastern mind, in which in- 
tellectual and moral instruction is represented under the 
image of eating and drinking, feasting and carousing, 
digesting and nourishing. " I," says Wisdom in the book 
of Ecclesiasticus, — " am the mother of fair love, and fear, 
and knowledge, and holy hope : I therefore, being eter- 
nal, am given to all my children. Come unto me, all ye 
that be desirous of me, and fill yourselves with my fruits. 
For my memorial is sweeter than honey, and mine inheri- 
tance than the honeycomb. They that eat me shall still 
hunger for more ; they that drink me shall still thirst for 
more." ^ It is no doubt to modern culture a repulsive ^ 
metaphor, but it is the same which has entered into all 
European languages in speaking of the most refined form 
of mental appreciation — taste. If we ask how this word 
has thus come to be used, it is difficult to say. " All that 
we know about the matter is this. Man has chosen to 
take a metaphor from the body and apply it to the mind, 
' Tact ' from touch is an analogous instance." ^ This gen- 
eral usage is sufficient to justify the expression without 
going back to the more barbarous and literal practices 
in which, in savage tribes, the conquerors devour the 
flesh of a hostile chief in order to absorb his courage 
into themselves, or the parents feed their children with 
the flesh of strong or spirited children in order to give 
them enerp:v.* 

II. We pass to the kindred but yet more famous 
words of the Synoptic Gospels in the account of ,^^^ synop- 
the Last Supper (Matt. xxvi. 26, 28 ; Markxiv. «« Gospels. 

1 Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 18-21. Cf. Prov. ix. 5. See also Sayings of Jeivisk 
Fathers, by C. Taylor, quoted in Philochristus, p. 438. 

2 See Foster's Essays, p. 279. 

3 Sydney Smith, Lectures on Moral Philosophy, pp. 153, 154. 

4 Herbert Spencer, Sociology, vol. i. pp. 259, 299, 300. 



116 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

22, 24; Luke xxii. 19, and, with a slight variation, 22). 
And these same words, long before the composition of 
the earliest of the present Gospels, are recorded by St. 
Paul in his narrative of the same event (1 Cor. xi. 24, 
and, with the same variation as in St. Luke), and thus 
form the most incontestable and the most authentic 
speech of the Founder of our Keligion : " This is My 
body; This is 3Iy blood.''' 

Two circumstances guide us to their historical mean- 
ing before we enter on them in detail. The first is that, 
on their very face, they appear before us as the crowning 
example of the style of Him whose main characteristic it 
was that He spoke and acted in parable, or proverb, or 
figure of speech. The second is that, though the words 
of the passage, as recorded in St. John's Gospel, could by 
no possibility have a direct reference to the Last Supper, 
which, at the time of the discourse at Capernaum, was 
still far in the distance, and to which, even when record- 
ing the sacred meal, the author of that Gospel makes no 
allusion, the probability is that they both contain the 
moral principle that is indicated in the outward act of 
the Eu.charistic ordinance. What this general truth must 
be we have already indicated : namely, that, however 
material the expressions, the idea wrapped up in them 
is, as in all the teaching of Christ, not material, but spir- 
itual, and that the conclusion to be drawn from them is 
not speculative, but moral and practical. All the con- 
verging sentiments of reverence for Him who spoke them, 
all our instinctive feeling of the unity of the Gospel nar- , 
ratives, would lead us in this direction even without any 
further inquiry into the particular meaning of the sepa- 
rate phrases. Li this general sense the meaning of the 
two words is indivisible, even as in the older Churches 
of Christendom the outward form of administration con- 
founds the two elements together — in the Roman Church 



Chap. VI.] THE BODY. 117 

by representing both in the bread, in the Greek Church 
by mixing both in the same moment. But there is never- 
tlieless a distinction which the original institution ex- 
presses, and of which the Hkeness is preserved in all Prot- 
estant Churches by the separate administration of the 
elements. Following, therefore, this distinction between 
the two phrases, we will endeavor to ask what is the 
Biblical meaning, first of "the body" and then "the 
blood " of Christ. 

1. What are we to suppose that our Lord intended 
when, holding in His hands the large round Paschal 
cake. He brake it and said, ''This is My body?" And 
secondly, what are we to suppose that St. Paul meant 
when he said, speaking of the like action of the Corin- 
thian Christians, " The bread which we break, is it not 
the communion of the body of Christ ? " 

It is maintained in the Church of Crete that the orig- 
inal bread is there preserved in fragments, and that this 
is the literal perpetuation of the first sacra- The Body 
mental "body." Another like tradition pre- ofcS? 
vails amongst the Nestorians. John the Bap- ''^^'^a^*^!*- 
tist gave to John the Evangelist some of the water from 
the baptism. Jesus gave to John two loaves at the Last 
Supper. John mixed his with the water of the Baptism 
and with the water and blood which he caught at the 
Crucifixion,^ ground it all into powder and mixed it with 
flour and salt into a leaven which is still used. In all 
other churches the bread used can only by a dramatic 
figure be supposed to represent the original subject of 
the words of institution. The main question is the mean- 
ing, in the Gospels, of the word " body." As in other 
parts of the Bible, the hand, the heart, the face of God 
are used for God Himself, so the body, the flesh of Christ 
are used for Christ Himself, for His whole personality 

1 Cutts, Christianity under the Crescent, p. 24. 



118 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

and cliaracter. " The bod}^," " the flesh," " the bone," 
was the Hebrew expression for the identity of any per- 
son or any thing. " The body of heaven " ^ meant the 
yery heaven, " the body of the day " meant the selfsame 
day,^ the body of a man meant his full strength.^ Even 
if we were to suppose that He meant literally His flesh 
to be eaten — even if we adopted the belief which the 
Roman heathens ascribed to the early Christians, that 
the sacrament was a cannibals' feast — even then, unless 
Christianity had been the most monstrous of supersti- 
tions, this banquet of human flesh could have been of no 
use. It would have been not only revolting, but, by the 
nature of the case, unprofitable. What is external can 
never, except through the spirit, touch the spirit. To 
suppose that the material can of itself reach the spiritual 
is not religion, but magic. As in the communion with 
our actual friends it is not the countenance that we value, 
but the mind which speaks through the countenance — 
it is not the sound of the words, but the meaning of the 
words, that we delight to hear — so also must it be in 
communion with One who, the more we know and think 
of Him, can have no other than a moral and spiritual re- 
lation to us. " After the flesh we know Him no more." 
It is, as the English Prayer Book expresses it, " His one 
oblation of Himself once offered." It is not the mere 
name of Jesus " which sounds so sweet to a believer's 
ear," but the whole mass of vivifyuig associations which 
that name brings with it. The picture of Jesus which 
we require is not that fabled portrait sent to King Ab- 
garus, or that yet more fabled portrait impressed on the 
handkerchief of Veronica, but the living image of His 
sweet reasonableness, His secret of happiness. His method 
of addressing the human heart. When, some years ago, 
one of the few learned divines of the Church of France, 

1 Ex. xxiv. 10. 2 Gen. xvii. 23, 26. 3 Job xxi. 23. 



Chap. VI.] THE BODY. 119 

the Pere Gratry, wished to correct some erroneous repre- 
sentations of Christ, he sought for the true picture — le 
vrai tableau — not in the traditions of his own Church, 
nor in the consecrated wafer, but in the grand and im- 
pressive portrait drawn by the profound insight of the 
foremost of Protestant theok:>gians in the closing vohimes 
of Ewald's " History of the People of Israel." The true 
" sacred heart " of Jesus is not the ph^^sical bleeding 
anatomical dissection of the Saviour's heart, such as ap- 
peared to the sickly visionary of France at Paray-le- 
Monial in the seventeenth century, but the wide embrac- 
ing toleration and compassion which even to the holiest 
sons and daughters of France at that time was as a sealed 
book. The true cross of Christendom is not one or all 
of the wooden fragments, be they ever so genuine, found, 
or imagined to be found, by the Empress Helena, but, 
in the words of Goethe, " the depth of divine sorrow " of 
which the cross is an emblem. " It is," as Luther said, 
" that cross of Christ which is divided throughout the 
whole world not in the particles of broken wood, but that 
cross which comes to each as his own portion of life. 
Thou therefore cast not thy portion from thee, but rather 
take it to thee — thy suffering, whatever it be — as a 
most sacred relic, and lay it up not in a golden or silver 
shrine, but in a golden heart, a heart clothed with gentle 
charity." Perhaps the strongest of all these expressions 
is " the Spirit " applied to the innermost part alike of 
God and of man. It is breathy ivind?- On one occasion 
we are told that our Saviour actually breathed on His 
disciples. But that breath, even though it was the most 
sacred breath of Christ, was not itself the Spirit — it w^as, 
and could be, only its emblem. 

And as the cross, the picture, the heart, the breath of 
Christ must of necessity point to something different 

1 Sidney Smith, Lectures on. Moral Philosophy, p. 12. 



120 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

from the mere outward form and symbol, so also '* the 
body," which is represented in the sacramental bread or 
spoken of in the sacramental words, must of necessity be 
not the mere flesh and bones of the Redeemer, but that 
undying love x)f truth, that indefatigable beneficence, that 
absolute resignation to His Father's will, by which alone 
we recognize His unique personality.. The words that 
He spoke (so He Himself said) w^ere the spirit and the 
life of His existence — those words of which it was said 
at the close of a long and venerable career by one ^ who 
knew well the history of Christianity, that they, and 
they alone, contain the primal and indefeasible truths of 
the Christian religion which shall not pass away. That 
character and those words have been, and are, and will 
be, the true sustenance of the human spirit, and the 
heavenly manna of which it may be said, almost without 
a figure, that " he who gathers much has nothing over, 
and even he who gathers little has no lack." Such, 
amidst many inconsistencies, was the definition of '' the 
body of Christ " even by some of the ancient fathers, 
Origen, Jerome, even Gregory called the Great. Such, 
amidst many contradictions, w^as the nobler view main- 
tained at least in one remarkable passage even in the 
Roman Missal wdiich states that where the sacrament 
cannot be had " sufficit vera fides et bona voluntas. 
Tantum crede et manducasti." It has been well said by 
a devout Scottish bishop, in speaking of this subject : 
" We should not expect to arrive at the secret of Hamlet 
by eating a bit of Shakespeare's body ; and so, though 
we ate ever so much of the material bones or flesh of the 
Founder of the Eucharist, w^e should not arrive one whit 
nearer to ' the mind which was in Christ Jesus.' " ^ It 
is only b\^ the mind that w^e can appropriate the mind 

1 Milman's History of Latin Christianity^ vol. vi. p. 638. 

2 Memoir of Bishop Eioing. 



Chap. VL] THE BODY. 121 

and heart of Christ — only by the spirit that we can 
appropriate His spirit. And therefore (it is an old truth, 
but one which requires to be again and again repeated) 
all acts of so-called communion with Christ have no Bib- 
lical or spiritual meaning except in proportion as they 
involve or express a moral fellowship with the Holy, the 
Just, the Pure, and the Truthful, wherever His likeness 
can be found — except in proportion as our spirits, minds, 
and characters move in unison with the parables of the 
Prodigal Son, and the Good Samaritan, and the Faithful 
Servant, and the Good Shepherd ; with the Beatitudes 
on the Galilean mountain, with the resignation of Geth- 
semane, with the courage of Calvary. In proportion as 
the ordinance of the Eucharist enables us to do this, it is 
a true partaking of what the Gospels intended by the 
body of Christ ; in proportion as it fails to do this, it is 
no partaking of anything. 

This is what is adumbrated in the English Communion 
Office, and by feebler expressions in the Roman Office, 
when it is said that every communicant pledges himself 
to walk in the steps of the great Self-sacrificer, and to 
offer himself a sacrifice of body, soul, and spirit to the 
Heavenly Father. We must incorporate and incarnate 
in ourselves — that is, in our moral natures — the sub- 
stance, the moral substance, of the teaching and char- 
acter of Jesus Christ. That is the only true transub- 
stantiation. We must raise ourselves above the base 
and mean and commonplace trivialties and follies of the 
world and of the Church to the lofty ideal of the Gospel 
story. That is the only true elevation of the Host. 
Nor is there anything fanciful or overstrained in the met- 
aphor, when we grasp the substance of which it is the 
sign. The record of the life and death of Jesus Christ, 
however we interpret it, is, and must be, the body, the 
substance, the backbone of Christendom. 



122 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

2. And this leads us to pass from the meaning of the 
phrase in the Gospels to its meaning in the Epistles. St. 
The Body is Paul distinctly tells us in the same Epistle as 
the Church, ^j^^^ {^i which he gives the earliest narrative of 
the Supper (1 Cor. x. 16, 17), " For we being many are 
one bread and one body " — that is, as the bread is one 
loaf made up of many particles and crumbs, so the 
Christian society is one body made up of many mem- 
bers, and that body is the body of Christ. Christ is 
gone ; the body, the outward form and substance that 
takes His place, is the assembly, the congregation of all 
His true followers. In this sense " the body of Christ " 
is (as is expressed in the second prayer of the English 
Communion Office) " the blessed company of all faithful 
people." This is the " body " — the community and fel- 
lowship one with another which the Corinthian Chris- 
tians were so slow to discern. i This is the sense in which 
the words are used in the vast majority of instances 
where the expression occurs in St. Paul's Epistles.^ It is 
a use of the word which no doubt varies from that in 
which it is employed by Christ Himself, and thus shows 
the extraordinary freedom of the Apostle in dealing 
even with the most sacred phrases. But the doctrine 
is the same as that which in substance pervades the 
general teaching of our Lord — namely, that the wise, 
the good, the suffering everywhere are His substitutes. 
" Wheresoever two or three are gathered together, there 
am I in the midst of them." " He that receiveth you 
receiveth Me." The whole point of the description of 

1 1 Cor. xi. 29. Even if the words were as in the English Authorized Ver- 
sion "not discerning the Lord's body,'' the sense would still be governed by 
the uniform language of the Apostle. But the meaning is brought out still 
more strongly in the genuine text, where it is simply "not discerning the 



2 Compare Rom. xii. 4, 5; 1 Cor. xii. 12, 13, 20, 27; Eph. iii. 6, ii. 16, iv. 4, 
12, 16; Col. i. 18, iii. 15, 19. 



Chap. VL] THE BODY. 123 

the Last Judgment is, that even the good heathens hav- 
ing never heard His name, yet have seen Him and served 
Him, and when they ask Him " When saw we Thee ? " 
He answers, without hesitation or reserve : " Inasmuch 
as ye did it to the least of these My brethren, ye did it 
unto Me. It was I who was hungry, and ye gave Me 
food. It was I who was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink. 
It was I who was a friendless stranger, and ye took Me 
in. It was I who was naked, and ye clothed Me. It 
was I who was on my sick-bed, and ye visited Me. It 
It was I who was shut up in prison, and ye visited me." 
These good deeds, wherever practised, are the true signs 
that Christ and Christianity have been there. Even if 
practised without naming His name, they are still the 
trophies of the victory over evil, for which He lived and 
died ; they are on the desert island of this mortal ex- 
istence the footmarks which show that something truly 
human, and therefore truly divine, has passed that 
way. 

If this be so — if every faithful servant of truth and 
goodness throughout the world is the representative of 
the Founder of our faith — if every friendless sufferer to 
whom we can render a service is as if Christ Himself 
appeared to us — then, not in the scholastic, but certainly 
in the Biblical sense of the word, there is a Real Pres- 
ence diffused through our whole daily intercourse. It is 
the truth which the Swiss Reformer expressed, who, see- 
ing a number of famished people around the church- 
door, said : '' I will not enter the church over the body 
of Christ." And lest this should seem to be a vague or 
unimpressive or unedifying doctrine, we venture to draw 
out its consequences more at length. 

The whole of .Christendom, the whole of humanity, is, 
in this sense, one body and many members. In the vast 
variety of human gifts and human characters, it is only 



124 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VL 

by this sympathy, forbearance, appreciation of that which 
one has and the other lacks, that we reach that ideal of 
society such as St. Paul imagined, such as Butler in his 
Sermon on Human Nature so well sets forth. It is the 
old Roman fable of Menenius Agrippa taken up and 
sanctified by the Christian Apostle. It is, as the French 
would say, the recognition in the Bible of the " solidar- 
ity " of peoples, of churches, and of men. It is the pro- 
test against the isolated selfishness in which we often 
shut ourselves up against wider sympathies. And as a 
nation we are one body, drawn together by the long 
tradition and lineage which have made us of one flesh 
and blood. Blood is thicker than water. Except we 
acknowledge the unity of our common kindred, we have 
no true national life abiding in us. We are one " body 
politic " — a fine expression which St. Paul has taught 
us. Our unity as Englishmen is also our unity in Him 
of whom all the tribes and families in earth are named. 
We were made one nation and one race by the order of 
His providence ; and they who make more of their party or 
their sect than of their country are refusing communion 
with the body of Him "whose fulness filleth all in all." 
And also as a Church, whether the Church Universal or 
the Church of our country, we are one body ; for the 
likenesses of character and opinion and pursuit which 
unite us, whether within the pale of the Church or 
without it, are but as so many bones and sinews, tissues 
and fibres, whereby "the whole body, being fitly joined 
together and compacted by that which every joint sup- 
plieth, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying 
of itself in love." And there is, also, the one body in 
which there is the one eternal communion of the living 
and the dead. Here the partitions of flesh fall away. 
Here there is but the communion of the spirit. But 
that communion is the deepest and the most enduring of 



Chap. VI.] THE BLOOD. 125 

all, for it is beyond the reach of time or chance. It can 
never be broken except by our own negligence and self- 
ishness. Whether it be the departure of a soul in the 
fulness of its glory and its usefulness, or of a soul bur- 
dened with the decay and weariness of its long pilgrim- 
age, the union may and shall still subsist. " We do not 
count by months and years where they are gone to 
dwell ; " we know only that they are in Him and with 
Him in whom we also live and move and have our being. 
They live because God lives, and we live or may live 
with them in that unity of soul and spirit which is be- 
yond the grave and gate of death. 

3. We now propose to take the expression, the hlood of 
Christy whether as used in the Gospels or in the Epistles. ^ 
First, is it the actual physical blood shed on the The wood of 
cross or flowing in the Redeemer's veins ? In ^^^^*^* 
the Middle Ages it was not an uncommon belief that 
drops of this blood had been preserved in various local- 
ities. There was the legend of the Sangrail or Holy 
Cup, or, as some used to read it, the Sangreal or the 
" real blood," said to have been brought by Joseph of 
Arimathea to Glastonbury and sought for by the Knights 
of King Arthur's Round Table. There is still shown in 
the church of Brussels a phial containing the bloods — 
'' the precious blood," as it is called — said to have been 
brought back by the Crusaders. There was another 
phial, which the Master of the Temple gave to Henry 
in., and which he carried in state from St. Paul's to 
Westminster Abbey, and of which drops were also 
shown at Ashridge and Hailes Abbey. The Abbey of 
Fecamp was also built to receive a casket which brought 
the like sacred liquid in a miraculous boat to tlie shores 

1 The phrase "body of Christ" (with the exception of Heb. x. 5, 10) does 
not occur in other than St. Paul's Epistles. But the phrase "the blood of 
Christ " occurs also in the Epistles of St. Peter and St. John and that to the 
Hebrews. 



126 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

of Normandy. But even where these relics are not at 
once condemned as fabulous or spurious, the shrines 
which contain them are comparatively deserted. The 
pilgrims to the churches at Fecamp and Brussels cannot 
be named in comparison with the crowds that flock to 
the modern centres of French devotion. And even as 
far back as the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas 
speaks of these literal drops with indifference. 

Nor, again, was the actual bloodshed the most con- 
spicuous characteristic of the Crucifixion. Modes of 
death there are where the scaffold is deluged with blood 
— where the spectators, the executioners, the victims, 
are plunged in the crimson stream. Not so in the few 
faint drops which trickled from the hands and feet of 
the Crucified, or which flowed from His wounded side. 
There was pallor, and thirst, and anguish, but the phys- 
ical bloodshed was the last thing that a by-stander would 
have noticed. Nor, again, has it been supposed in the 
Roman Catholic Church, except by very ignorant per- 
sons, that the wine in the Eucharist is the actual phys- 
ical blood of Christ. There is, indeed, a small chapel on 
the shores of the Lake of Bolsena in which are pointed 
out spots of blood as from the sacramental wine, and 
there was at Wilsnake, in the north of Germany, a nap- 
kin marked with similar stains. But these are now 
treated either with contempt and incredulity, or at the 
most as exceptional portents. 

It is obvious, then, that, alike in the Catholic and Prot- 
estant world, the expression " blood of Christ " is by all 
thinking Christians regarded as a figure of speech, sacred 
and solemn, but still pointing to something be^^ond itself. 
What is that something ? The wine is confessedly the 
emblem of the blood of Christ. But the blood of Christ 
itself, when used as a religious term, must also be the 
emblem of some spiritual reality. What is that spir- 
itual reality ? 



Chap. VI.] THE BLOOD. 127 

What is the moral significance of hlood ? It may be 
manifold. 

There is its peculiar meaning in the crimson color 
which overspreads the face in moments of great emotion. 
It has been well said : " If God made the blood 
of man, did He not much more make that feel- 
ing which summons the blood to his face, and makes it 
the sign of guilt ? " ^ and, we must also add, of just in- 
dignation, of honest shame, of ingenuous modesty ? It 
would be childish to speak of the mere color or liquid of 
the blood in these cases as the thing important. It would 
be unphilosophical, on the other hand, not to acknowl- 
edge the value of the moral quality of which the blood in 
these cases is the sure sign and sacrament. There is a 
famous passage in Terence in speaking of the features of 
a young man : '" He blushes — his face glows with scar- 
let ; he is saved." (^Eruhuit ; salva res est.^ He was 
saved by that which the mantling blood in his cheek 
represented. 

There is another idea of which blood is the emblem. 
It is the idea of suffering. A wound, a blow, produces 
the effusion of blood, and blood therefore sug- 
gests the idea of pain. This is no doubt part of 
the thought in such passages as " This is He that came 
by water and by blood," or " Without shedding .of blood 
there is no remission," or again in the magnificent de- 
scription of the conqueror of Edom (Isa. Ixiii. 1-3) ad- 
vancing knee-deep in the blood, whether of himself or 
his enemies, the lively expression of the truth that with- 
out exertion there can be no victory — that " via crucis, 
via lucis."" It is the thought so well set forth in Keble's 
hymn on the Circumcision : — 

Like sacrificial wine 

Poured on a victim's head 

1 Sydney Smith, Lectures on Moral Philosophy ^ p. 11. 



128 THE BODY AXD BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

Are those fe^r precious drops of Thine 
Now first to offering led. 

They are the pledge and seal 

Of Christ's unswerving faith 
Given to His Sire, our souls to heal, 

Although it cost His death. i 

But these and all other moral senses which we can at- 
tach to the word hloocl run up into a more general and 
The inner- also a morc Biblical significance. " The blood 
of Christ. of a living thing is the life thereof." This 
expression of the old Jewish Law, many times repeated, 
well harmonizes with the langTiage of Harvey : " Blood is 
the fountain of life, the first to live, and the last to die, 
and the primary seat of the animal soul."^ When any 
one was described as shedding his blood for another, or 
sealing a testament or will or covenant with his blood, it 
was meant that he sealed or signed it with whatever was 
most precious, most a part of himself. The blood is the 
life-blood — is, as it were, the very soul of those who 
give it. The spot of blood placed on the altar, whether 
of human or animal sacrifice, the streak of blood from 
the Paschal lamb on the forehead of Jew or Samaritan, 
represented the vital spark of the dead creature which a 
few moments before had been full of life and vigor. 

As, then, the body of Christ, in the language of Script- 
ure, means (as we saw) one of two things — either His 
general character and moral being, or the Chris- 
tian and human society which now represents 
Him — so the blood of Christ in like manner means the 
inmost essence of His character, the self of His self, or 
else the inmost essence of the Christian society, the life- 
blood of Christendom and humanity. And therefore we 

1 This is well set forth in an interesting volume lately published by Dr. Story, 
of Rosneath, entitled Creed and Conduct (pp. 77-92). 

2 Lev. xvii. 4. See Speaker'' s Commentary, vol. 1. part ii. p. 836 ; Ewald, An- 
tiquities of the People of Israel, pp. 35-41, 44-62 (Eng. transl.). 



Chap. VI.] THE BLOOD. 129 

must ask yet another question : What is the most essen- 
tial characteristic, the most precious part of Christ, the 
most peculiar and vivifying element of Christendom ? 
This question is not so easy to answer in a single word. 
Different minds would take a different view of that which 
to them constitutes the one thing needful, the one indis- 
pensable element of the Christian life. To some it would 
seem to be freedom, to others intellectual progress, to 
others justice, to others truth, to others purity. But 
looking at the Bible only, and taking the Bible as a 
whole — asking what is at once the most comprehensive 
and the most peculiar characteristic of the life of Jesus 
Christ and of the best spirits of Christendom — we can- 
not go far astray in adopting the only definition of the 
blood of Christ which has come down to us irom primitive 
times. It is contained in one of the three undisputed, or 
at any rate least disputed, epistles of Ignatius of Antioch. 
"The blood of Christ," he said, "is love or charity." ^ 
With this unquestionably agrees the language of the New 
Testament as to the essential characteristic of God and of 
Christ. Love, unselfish love, is there spoken of again 
and again as the fundamental essence of the highest life 
of God ; and it is also evident on the face of the Gospels 
that it is the fundamental motive and characteristic of 
the life and death of Christ. It is this love stronger than 
death, this love manifesting itself in death, this love will- 
ing to spend itself for others, that is the blood of the life 
in which God is well pleased. Not the pain or torture of 
the cross — for that was alike odious to God and useless 
to man — but the love, the self-devotion, the generosity, 
the magnanimit}^, the forgiveness, the toleration, the com- 
passion, of which that blood was the expression, and of 
which that life and death were the fulfilment. " Non san- 
guine sed pietate placatur Deus " is the maxim of more 

1 Ignatius Ad Trail. 8. 



130 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VL 

than one of the Fathers. " What is the blood of Christ ? " 
asked Livingstone of his own solitary soul in the last 
months of his African wanderings. " It is Himself. It is 
the inherent and everlasting mercy of God made appar- 
ent to human eyes and ears. The everlasting love was 
disclosed by our Lord's life and death. It showed that 
God forgives because He loves to forgive. He rules, if 
possible, by smiles and not by frowns. Pain is only a 
means of enforcing love." ^ The charity of God to men, 
the charity of men to one another with all its endless con- 
sequences — if it be not this, what is it ? If there be 
any other characteristic of Christ more essential to His 
true nature, any message of the gospel more precious than 
this, let us know it. But till we are told of any other we 
may rest contented with believing that it is that which 
St. John himself describes as the essence of the nature of 
God (" God is love "), which St. Paul describes as the 
highest of the virtues of man (" The greatest of these 
is love "). It is that which Charles Wesley, in one of his 
most beautiful hymns, describes as the best answer to 
the soul inquiring after God : not justification or conver- 
sion, but — 

Come, Thou Traveller unknown ! 

Whom still I hold, but cannot see; 
Speak, or Thou never hence shalt move, 
And tell me if Thy name be Love. 
In vain I have not wept and strove : 
Thy nature and Thy name is Love. 

It is that which John Keble, in a poem of which the 
sentiment might have been from Whichcote or Schleier- 
macher, describes as the best answer to the inquiry after 
the religious life of man : not the sacraments, not the 
creeds, but — 

Wouldst thou the life of souls discern ? 
Nor human wisdom nor divine 

^ Livingstone^ s Journal, August 5, 1873. The word used is "What is the 
atonement ? " But he evidently meant the same thing. 



Chap. VI.] THE BLOOD. 131 

Helps thee by aught beside to learn : 
Love is life's only sign. 

It is that which Ken, in a fine passage at the beginning 
of his " Approach to the Altar," thus states with a bold 
latitudinarianism, like indeed to the theology of his 
hymns, but widely at variance with the dogmatic rigidity 
of the school to which he belonged : " To obtain eternal 
life, all I am to do is reduced to one word only, and that 
is 'love.' This is the first and great command, which 
comprehends all others — the proper evangelical grace. 
.... The love of God is a grace rather felt than de- 
fined. It is the general tendency and inclination of the 
whole man, of all his heart and soul and strength, of all 
his powers and affections, and of the utmost strength of 
them all, to God as his chief and only and perfect and 
infinite good." It is therefore not only from Calvary, 
but from Bethlehem and Nazareth and Capernaum — not 
only from the Crucifixion, but from all His acts of mercy 
and words of wisdom — that '^ the blood of Christ " de- 
rives its moral significance. As so often in ordinary 
human lives, so in that Divine life, the death was the 
crowning consummation ; but as in the best human lives, 
as in the best deaths of the best men, so also in that 
Divine death, the end was of value only or chiefly be- 
cause it corresponded so entirely to the best of lives. 
Doubtless love is not the only idea of perfection — kind- 
ness is not the only idea of Heaven. The terrible suf- 
ferings of this present world are, we all know, very 
difficult to reconcile with the belief that its Maker is 
all-loving. Yet still the gospel story leaves no doubt 
that unselfish kindness and compassion were the leading 
principles of the life of Christ ; and the history of 
Christendom leaves no doubt that unselfish benevolence 
and kindness are the most valuable elements of the life 
of society. 



182 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

If we now turn to the Sacrament of the Lord's Sup- 
per, and ask in what special way the fruit of the grape, 
the chalice of the Communion, represent the love of 
Christ and the love of His followers, the answer is two- 
fold. 

First, as being at a farewell feast, it was the likeness 
of the blood shed, as we have already noticed, in the 
Theattesta- signing and sealing of treaties or covenants, 
tion. rpj^g earliest account of the institution of the 

Eucharist (1 Cor. xi. 25) expresses this directly. Not 
" This is my blood," but " Tliis is the Netu Covenant in 
my hlood.^^ It was the practice of the ancient Arabs to 
sign their treaties with blood drawn from their own veins. 
Even in modern times, when the Scottish peasants and 
nobles desired to express their adhesion to the Solemn 
League and Covenant, they in some instances wrote their 
names with their blood. There are also examples of con- 
spirators binding themselves together by the practice of 
drinking a cup filled with human blood, as the most sol- 
emn mode of testifying their adhesion to each other. 
There is again the expression and the image familiar to 
all of us, of the soldier, the martyr, the patriot shed- 
ding his blood for the good of his country, his cause, his 
religion. From the blood of the righteous Abel to the 
blood of Zacharias who was slain between the temple 
and the altar, from the blood of Zacharias to the last 
soldier who shed, his blood on behalf of his cou^itry, it is 
the supreme offering which any human being can*make 
to loyalty, to duty, to faith. And of all these examples 
of the sacrifice of life, of the shedding of blood, the 
most sacred, the most efiicacious, is that which was 
offered and shed on Calvary, because it was the offering 
made not for war or aggression, but for peace and rec- 
onciliation ; not in hatred, but in love ; not by a fee- 
ble, erring, ordinary mortal, but by Him who is by all of 



Chap. VI.] THE BLOOD. 133 

US acknowledged to be the Ideal of man and the Like- 
ness of God. It is, therefore, this final and supreme test 
of our love and lo^^alty that the cup of the Eucharist 
suggests — our willingness, if so be, to sacrifice our own 
selves, to shed our own blood for what we believe to be 
right and true and for the good of others. 

And secondly, the use of wine to represent the blood 
— that is, the love — of Christ, conveys to us the pro- 
found thought that as wine makes glad the heart ^he enthu- 
of man, so the love of God, the love of Christ, ^'''^^'^• 
the love of man for God and men, makes glad the heart 
of those who come within its invigorating, enkindling in- 
fluence. In that fierce war waged in the fifteenth cent- 
ury by the Bohemian nation in order to regain the use 
of the sacramental wine which the Roman Church had 
forbidden, when they recovered the use of it, the sacred 
cup or chalice was henceforth carried as a trophy in front 
of their armies. With them it was a mere pledge of 
their ecclesiastical triumph, a token of their national in- 
dependence. But with us, when we turn from the out- 
ward thing to the thing signified, it is only too true that 
Catholics and Protestants alike have lost the cup from 
their Communion feasts. If, as we have said, the blood 
of Christ, of which the sacred wine is the emblem, in 
itself signifies the self-denying, life-giving love ^ of Christ, 
have not we often lost from our lives and our ordinances 
that which is the life of all Christian life, and the wine 
of all Christian ordinances — namely, the love or charity. 
" without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before 
God ? " Whosoever regains that chalice, whosoever pours 
that new wine into our dead hearts, may well bear it as 
a trophy before the Christian armies. The ground on 
which the Roman Church withheld the literal wine from 

^ George Herbert : — 

Love is that liquor sweet and most divine, 
Which my God feels as blood, and I as wine. 



134 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

all but the officiating priest was the scruple lest the ma- 
terial liquid might possibly be spilled. Our ground for 
insisting on the cup for the laity ought to be that the 
Divine charity of which the cup of the Communion is 
the emblem belongs to the whole Church. To recover 
that holy cup, that real life-blood of the Redeemer, is a 
quest worthy of all the chivalry of our time, worthy of 
all the courage of Lancelot, worthy of all the purity 
of Galahad. 

This is the wine of that heavenly enthusiasm of which 
a Persian sage sang of old: " Bring me a cup of wine, 
not that wine which drives away wisdom, but that un- 
mixed wine whose hidden force vanquishes fate — that 
clear wine which sanctifies the garb of the heart — that 
illuminating wine which shows to lovers of the world the 
true path — that purifying wine which cleanses the med- 
itative mind from fanciful thoughts." ^ This is indeed 
the likeness of the blood which spoke better things than 
the blood of Abel, because it was not the mere material 
blood of an innocent victim, but it was, and is, the aspir- 
ing love and life which sank not into the ground, but 
rose again to be the love and life of a regenerated world. 

And this leads us to ask yet one more question. What 
is the moral effect of this life-blood of the Christian 
The cleans- spi^'it ? The answcr is given by St. John (1 
^°^" John i. 7, 9) : " It cleanseth us from all sin," 

or, as is said in the words just following, " cleanseth us 
from all unrighteousness^^' from all injustice ^unequal deal- 
ing^ iniquity. This figure of cleansing or washing, which 
occurs often in the Bible in this connection with blood, 
seems to be taken not so much from the Hebrew worship 
as from the Mithraic or Persian sacrifices then so com- 
mon, in which the worshippers were literally bathed in 
a stream of blood, not merely sprinkled or touched, but 

' Sacred Anthology, p. 167. 



Chap. VL] THE BLOOD. 135 

plunged from head to foot as in a baptism of blood. 
The figure in itself is revolting. But its very strange- 
ness throws us far away from the sign to the reality. It 
means that where any soul is imbued with a love, a 
charity like that of Christ, surrounded, bathed in this as 
in a holy atmosphere, withdrawn by the contemplation 
of His death and b}^ the spirit of His life from all the 
corrupting influences of the world or the Church, there 
the sin, the hatred, the uncharitableness, the untruthful- 
ness of men are purified and washed away. So far as 
the blood — that is, the self-sacrificing love — of Christ 
effects this, so far it has done its work ; so far as it 
has not done this, it has been shed in vain. It is said 
that a young English soldier of gay and dissolute life 
was once reading this chapter of St. John, and when he 
came to the passage — " The blood of Jesus Christ .... 
cleanseth us from all sin " — he started up and ex- 
claimed : " Then henceforth I will live, by the grace of 
God, as a man should live who has been washed in 
the blood of Jesus Christ." ^ That was Hedley Vicars. 
And by this thought he lived thenceforth a pure and 
spotless life. That was indeed to be " cleansed by the 
blood of Christ." -It was an example the more striking, 
because probably unconscious, of the true meaning of the 
cleansing effect of "the blood" — that is, the unselfish 
life and death — of Christ. Cleansing, bathing, washing 
— these, of course, are figures of speech when applied 
to the soul. But they must mean for the soul what is 
meant by cleansing as applied to the body. When, for 
example, we pray with the Psalmist, " Make clean our 
hearts within us," we pray that our motives may be 

1 The belief that a bath of blood has a purifying effect appears from time to 
time in the stories of kings, suffering from dreadful maladies, bathing them- 
selves in the blood of children —Pharaoh (Midrash on Ex. ii. 23), Constantine, 
Charles IX. of France. For this reason baptism was often said to be "in the 
blood of Christ." See Wilberforce, Doctrine of the Eucharist, p. 228. 



136 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

made free from all those by-ends and self-regards that 
spoil even some of the finest natures. When the prophet 
said that our sins should be made " as white as wool," 
he meant that so great is the power of the human will, 
and of the grace of God, that the human character can 
be transformed — that the soul which once was stained 
deep with the red spots of sin can become white as 
driven snow. When we speak of Christ Himself as the 
spotless immaculate Lamb, we mean that He was really 
without spot of sin. When we speak of ourselves as 
washed in the blood of that Lamb, we ought to mean 
not that we continue "just as we were," with a clean- 
ness imputed to us in which our characters have no 
share, but that our uncharitableness, our untruthfulness, 
our cowardice, our vulgarity, our unfairness, are, so far 
as human infirmity will permit, washed out. When in 
one part of the English Communion Service we pray 
that our souls may be washed in the blood of Christ, it 
is the same prayer as in substance we pray in that other 
collect in another part of the same office which John 
Wesley declared to be ^ the summary of the primitive 
religion of love, the summary of the religion of the 
Church of England : " Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts 
by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may per- 
fectly love Thee and worthily magnify Thy holy name." 
When, in the well-known hymns which are often sung 
in excited congregations, we speak of " the fountain filled 
with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, where sin- 
ners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty 
stains," these passages, unless they are only figures with- 
out substance, must be the prayer which goes up from 
every soul which feels the desire to be cleansed from all 
those defilements of passion or falsehood or self-conceit 
or hatred which will doubtless cling to us more or less 

1 Wesley's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 424. ^ 



Chap. VI.] THE BLOOD. 137 

to the end of our mortal life, but disappear in propor- 
tion as we are bathed in the Spirit of eternal love and 
purity. It is the same prayer as that which is expressed 
in more refined and chastened language by our own liv- 
ing Laureate in his poem on St. Agnes : — 

Make thou my spirit pure and clear 
As are the frosty skies; 

or in the yet sublimer invocation of Milton to Him who 
prefers 

Before all temples the upright heart and pure. 

But perhaps we ought still to ask — How is it that the 
love of Christ, which is the love of man and the love of 
God, and which is the life-blood of the Christian religion 
— how is it that this love cleanses and purifies the char- 
acter? Why is it, more than justice or truth or cour- 
age, described as the regenerating element of the human 
heart ? To do this at length would be beyond our limits. 
In a philosophic sense it is well drawn out in Butler's 
Sermon on the Love of God. With all the energy of an 
impassioned and devout soul it is drawn out in the ser- 
mons and letters of Charles Kingsley. But still, in order 
to show that we are not merely dealing in generalities, 
take some of the special forms in which true affection has 
this effect in human life. Take gratitude. We have 
known some one who has done, us a lasting service. We 
wish to repay the kindness. In ninety-nine cases out of 
a hundred we cannot repay it better than by showing 
that we are worthy of it. We have, by the exertions of 
such a good friend, been placed in a good situation or set 
in a good way of life. We keep in mind the effect which 
our good or evil conduct will have on them. It will 
wound them to the quick if we deceive or disappoint their 
expectations. It will be as sunshine to their life if we do 
credit to their recommendation. The boy at school, the 
public officer ministering for the public good, the private 



138 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

clerk in some responsible situation, the servant in a house- 
hold great or small, may have always before them the 
image of their benefactor. The love, the gratitude, which 
they bear, or ought to bear, towards him, will cleanse and 
purify their hearts. If he or she is still living, we may 
think what it would be to meet them with an open or a 
shame-stricken countenance. The love which they have 
shown to us, and the gratitude we feel, will drive out the 
evil spirit. 

Or, again, gratitude for some great benefit, say a re- 
covery from illness. It may have been a recovery for 
which many have anxiously watched — a recovery which 
has, as it were, given us a new lease of life. He who re- 
sponds to that experience will have his heart softened, 
opened, cleansed. That heart which refuses to be softened, 
opened, and cleansed, after such an experience, must be 
as hard as the nether millstone. Such a one, wherever 
he may be, if indeed he has so little of the grateful sense 
of good received, has trodden under foot the love of " the 
everlasting covenant " which nature as well as grace has 
made between man and man, between man and God. 

Or, again, the love, the pure affections, of home. We 
sometimes hear it said that during the last few years the 
bonds of English society are relaxed, the fountains of Eng- 
lish morality poisoned — that things are talked of, and 
tolerated, and practised, which in the former generation 
would have been despised, condemned, and put down. 
Against these defiling, destroying, devastating influences, 
what is the safeguard ? It is surely the maintenance, the 
encouragement, of that pure domestic love of which we 
just now spoke. Dr. Chalmers used to preach of the ex- 
pulsive force of a new affection. But it is enough for our 
purpose to have the expulsive force of an old affection — 
of that old, very old affection which lies in the vitals of 
human society, which is truly its life-blood — the affec- 



Chap. VI.] THE BLOOD. 139 

tion of son for father and mother, of husband for wife 
and of wife for husband, of brother for sister and of sis- 
ter for brother. Such an element of affection is the salt 
of the national existence, is the continuation of the re- 
membrance of that sacred blood of which we are told " to 
drink and be thankful." He who turns his back on these 
home affections has left himself open to become the prey, 
whether in the upper or the lower classes, of the basest 
and vilest of men, of the basest and vilest of women. 

Or, again, the love of our countr}^ or, if we prefer so 
to put it, the love of the public good. It is no fancy to 
call these feelings by so strong a name. They who have 
felt it know that it is a passion which cheers us amidst 
the greatest difficulties, which consoles us even in the 
deepest private calamities. And it is a passion in the 
presence of which the meaner trivialities of existence 
wither and perish. It is a passion in the absence of which 
there grows up falsehood, and intrigue, and vulgar inso- 
lence, and selfish ambition and rancorous faction. It was 
a passion which animated our great statesmen of times 
gone by — Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Canning, Wellington, 
and Peel. It was a passion which once cleaj;ised our 
Augean stable, which flowed like a generous wine through 
the veins of the Commonwealth and to the extremities 
of society. Whether it is now more or less potent than 
it was then, whether the public service of the state is 
sought after, or the great questions of the day taken up, 
more or less than formerly, from the large and sincere 
conviction of their truth and their goodness, or only, or 
chiefly, for temporary or personal purposes, let those an- 
swer who best know. Only, whenever this lofty passion 
shall cease in the high places of our land, then the end is 
not far off ; then the blood of patriots wall have been 
wasted, the blood of heroes and of martyrs will have been 
shed in vain ; and with the decay of public spirit and of 



140 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

the affection of our best citizens for our common country, 
the moral health and strength of State and of Church, of 
statesmen and of private men, will dwindle, pale, and 
pine as surely as a sickly frame through which the life- 
blood has ceased to permeate. 

These are some of the examples of the way in which 
single disinterested affection for what is good makes all 
duties easy and all vices difficult, and so fulfils the law 
of God. For the purification thus effected by the love of 
friends, home, and country is the likeness of what may 
be effected by that love through which the Supreme 
Goodness comes down to earth, and through which our 
imperfect goodness ascends to heaven. 

In this brief summary of the Biblical meaning of the 
words " Body and Blood of Christ," it has been intended 
not so much to run counter to any metaphysical theories 
on the Eucharist, as to indicate that the only important 
significance to be attached to the Biblical words belongs 
to a region which those theories hardly touch, and which, 
therefore, may be treated beyond and apart from most 
of the cpntroversies on the subject. In some phrases of 
the Roman Missal, and perhaps still more in parts of the 
Roman practice, it is difficult to avoid the impression 
that a magical process is implied of material particles 
touching the mind as though it were matter. This ac- 
cordingly became synonymous with the most vulgar form 
of sleight of hand. The sacred phrase of " Hoc est cor- 
pus " by a natural descent was corrupted into " hocus 
pocus." The obligation of fasting before the Commun- 
ion has been confirmed, if not originated, by the notion 
that the matter of the sacramental substance might meet 
the matter of ordinary food in the process of physical di- 
gestion. In the Communion Offices of the Reformed 
Churches, including the English, traces of these material 



Chap. VL] THE BLOOD. 141 

traditions linger, and the higher purpose of moral im- 
provement originally implied in the words has perhaps 
been also thrown into the background by the prominence 
of the historical and commemorative element. Still, 
even in the Roman Office, and much more in the Prot- 
testant Offices, the moral element is found, and probably, 
to the more enlightened members of all Churches, the 
idea is never altogether absent, that the main object of 
the Eucharist is the moral improvement of the commu- 
nicants. Nevertheless, it is necessary to bring out as 
strongly as possible this moral element as the primary, it 
is hardly too much to say the sole, meaning of the words 
on which the institution of the Eucharist is founded. It 
may be that the moral intention of these sacred phrases 
and acts is, unconsciously, if not consciously, so deeply 
imbedded in their structure as to render any such exposi- 
tion unnecessary. It may be that the signs, the shadows, 
the figures have been or shall be so raised above what 
is local, material, and temporary, that they shall be almost 
inseparable from the moral improvement which alone is 
the true food,^ the true health of the soul. But possibly 
the materialism of the ecclesiastical sacristy, keeping pace 
with the materialism of the philosophic school, may so un- 
dermine the spiritual element of this — almost the only ex- 
ternal ordinance of Christianity — as to endanger the or- 
dinance itself. Possibly the carnal and material may so 
absorb and obliterate the spiritual that it will be necessary 
in the name of Religion to expect some change in the out- 
ward forms of the sacrament, not less incisive than those 
which in former ages by the general instinct of Christen- 
dom swept away those parts which have now perished for- 
ever. Infant Communion, once universal throughout the 
whole Church, and still retained in the East, has been for- 

1 There is a striking passage in Fdnelon to the effect that the true food of the 
soul is moral goodness. Meditations on the Sixteenth Day. 



142 THE BODY AND BLOOD. [Chap. VI. 

bidden throughout the whole Western Church, Catholic 
and Protestant alike. Daily Communion, universal in the 
primitive Church, has for the vast majority of Christians 
been discontinued both in East and West. Evening Com- 
munion, the original time of the ordinance, has been for- 
bidden by the Roman Church. Solitary Communion 
has been forbidden in the English Church. Death-bed 
Communion has been forbidden in the Scottish Church. 
It is difficult to imagine changes, short of total abolition, 
more sweeping than these. But yet they were induced 
by the repugnance of the higher instinct of Christendom 
to see its most sacred ceremony degraded into a charm. 
It is possible that the metaphors of the Bible on this 
subject shall be felt to have been so misused and distorted 
that they also shall pass into the same abeyance as has 
already overtaken some expressions which formerly were 
no less dear to pious hearts than these. The use of the 
language of the Canticles, such as was familiar to St. 
Bernard and Samuel Rutherford, has become impossible, 
and many terms used in St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans 
and Galatians on Predestination and Justification are now 
but very rarely heard in ordinary pulpits. But, what- 
ever betide, it is alike the duty and the hope, whether of 
those who fondly cling to these forms or words, or of 
those who think, perhaps too boldly, that they can dis- 
pense with them, to keep steadily in view the moral real- 
ities, for the sake of which alone (if Christianity be the 
universal religion) such forms exist, and which will sur- 
vive the disappearance even of the most venerable ordi- 
nances, even of the most sacred phrases. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ABSOLUTION. 

It is well known that in certain parts of Christendom, 
and in certain sections of the English Church, consider- 
able importance is attached to the words which appear 
in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John, as justifying 
the paramount duty of all Christians to confess their 
sins to presbyters, who have received episcopal ordina- 
tion, and the exclusive right of presbyters, so appointed, 
to absolve them. 

It is not here intended to enter on the various objec- 
tions raised on moral grounds to this theory. But it 
may be useful to show the original meaning of the words, 
and then trace their subsequent history. It will be then 
seen that, whatever other grounds there may be for the 
doctrine or practice in question, these passages have 
either no relation to it, or that whatever relation they 
have is the exact contradiction of the theory in question. 

The texts are (in English) as follows : — 

The address to Peter (Matt. xvi. 19) : " Whatsoever 
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : and 
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in 
heaven." 

The address to the disciples (Matt, xviii. 18) : '' What- 
soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven : 
and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in 
heaven." 

The address to the disciples (John xx. 23) : " Whose- 
soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them : and 
whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained." 



144 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. YII. 

We will first take the two passages in the Gospel of 
St. Matthew. For the purposes of this argument the 
words addressed to St. Peter need not be distinguished 
from the words addressed to the disciples, as they are in 
each case identically the same.^ 

I. The phrase "binding" and "loosing" meant, in the 
language of the Jewish schools, declaring what is right 
Binding and ^^'^^ what is wrong. If any Master, or Rabbi, 
loosing. Q^, Judge, declared a thing to be right or true, 
he was said to have loosed it ; if he declared a thing to be 
wrong or false, he was said to have bound it. That this 
is the original meaning of the words has been set at rest 
beyond possibility of question since the decisive quota- 
tions given by the most learned Hebrew scholars of the 
seventeenth century.^ The meaning, therefore, of the 
expressions, as addressed to the first disciples, was that, 
humble as they seemed to be, yet, by virtue of the new 
spiritual life and new spiritual insight which Christ 
brought into the world, their decisions in cases of right 
and wrong would be invested with all and more than all 
the authority which had belonged before to the Masters 
of the Jewish Assemblies, to the Rulers and Teachers 
of the Synagogues. It was the same promise as was ex- 
pressed in substance in those other well-known passages : 
" It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of My Father 
which speaketh in you." " He that is spiritual judgeth 
all things." " Ye have an unction from the Holy One, 
and ye know all things, and need not that any one should 
teach you." " The Comforter shall lead you into all 
truth." 

The sense thus given is as adequate to the occasion as 

1 For their peculiar meaning as addressed to St. Peter, it may be permitted to 
refer to a volume published many years ago, entitled Sermons and Essays on 
the Apostolic Age^ pp. 127—34. 

2 "Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations upon the Evangelist St. Matthew 
(xvi. 19). By John Lightfoot, D. D." Works, vol. ii. pp. 206-7. 



Chap. VII.] BINDING AND LOOSING. 145 

ifc is certainly trae. In the new crisis through which the 
world was to pass, they — the despised scholars of a de- 
spised Master — were to declare what was changeable 
and what was unchangeable, what was eternal, what was 
transitory, what was worthy of approval, and what was 
worthy of condemnation. They were to declare the in- 
nocence of a thousand customs of the Gentile world, 
which their Jewish countrymen had believed to be sin- 
ful ; they were to declare the exceeding sinfulness of a 
thousand acts which both Jews and Pagans had believed 
to be virtuous or indifferent. They were empowered to 
announce with unswerving confidence the paramount im- 
portance of charity, and the supreme preciousness of 
truth. They were empowered to denounce with unspar- 
ing condemnation the meanness of selfishness, the sacri- 
lege of impurity, the misery of self-deceit, the impiety 
of uncharitableness. And what the first generation of 
Christians, to whom these words were addressed, thus 
decided, has on the whole been ratified in heaven — has 
on the whole been ratified by, the voice of Providence 
in the subsequent history of mankind. By this discern- 
ment of good and evil the Apostolic writers became the 
lawgivers of the civilized world. Eighteen hundred 
years have passed, and their judgments in all essential 
points have never been reversed. 

The authority or the accuracy of portions of the New 
Testament on this or that point is often disputed. The 
grammar, the arguments, the history of the autliors of 
the Gospels and Epistles can often be questioned. But 
that which must govern us all — their declaration of the 
moral standard of mankind, the ideal they have placed 
before us of that which is to guide our conduct — which 
is, after all, as has been said by Matthew Arnold, three 
fourths of human life — has hardly been questioned at 
all by the intelligent and upright part of mankind. The 

10 



146 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. Vil. 



Ill 



condemnation of sins, the commendation of graces 
St. Matthew's description of the Beatitudes, in St. Luke's 
description of the Prodigal Son, in St. John's description 
of the conversation with the woman of Samaria, in St. 
Peter's declaration that in every land '' he that worketh 
righteousness (of whatever creed or race) is accepted of 
God," in St. Paul's description of charity, in St. James's 
description of pure religion — have commanded the en- 
tire assent of the world, of Bolingbroke and Voltaire no 
less than of Thomas a Kempis and Wesley, because these 
moral judgments bear on their face that stamp of the 
divine, the superhuman, the truly supernatural, which 
critical inquiry cannot touch, which human wisdom and 
human folly alike, whilst they may be unwilling or una- 
ble to fulfil the precepts, yet cannot deny. This is the 
original meaning in which the judgments of the first 
Christians in regard to sin and virtue were ratified in 
heaven. It is necessary to insist on this point in order 
to show that an amply sufficient force and solemnity is 
inherent in the proper meaning of the words, without 
resorting to fictitious modes of aggrandizing them in di- 
rections for which they were not intended. 

The signification of the phrase in John xx. 23, trans- 
lated in the Authorized Version ''remitting and retain- 
ing sins," is not equally clear. The words used 
and^ieS- (dc^te\af, tc^ecrts) do not of necessity mean the dec- 
ingsms. ij^i'^tion of the innocence or lawfulness of any 
particular act; still less does the corresponding phrase 
(Kpareti/) necessarily mean the declaration of its unlawful- 
ness. It may be that the words rendered "remit sin" are 
(as in Mark i. 4; Luke iii. 3) equivalent to the abolition 
or dismissal of sin, and it would be the natural meaning of 
the word rendered " retain sin " that it should signify, as 
in all the other passages of the New Testament where it 
occurs, ''to control," "conquer," " subdue sin." In that 



Chap. VII.] EEMITTING AND RETAINING SINS. 147 

case the words would describe, not the intellectual or di- 
dactic side of the Apostolic age, but its moral and prac- 
tical side, and would correspond to numerous other pas- 
sages, such as, " Ask and it shall be given unto you ; " 
" If ye will say unto this mountain, Be thou removed 
and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done ; " " He 
that humbleth himself shall be exalted ; " " Inasmuch as 
ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye 
have done it unto Me; " "Greater works than these shall 
ye do; " " Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world ; " 
" Sanctify them through Thy truth ; " " My grace is suf- 
ficient for thee ; " "I can do all things through Christ 
that strengtheneth me ; " " He that overcometh and keep- 
eth My words unto the end, to him will I give power 
over the nations." If this assurance of the moral vic- 
tory of the Apostolic age over sin be the meaning of the 
phrases, then here also it may be affirmed, without fear 
of contradiction, that, on the whole, and with the neces- 
sary reserves of human imperfection, the moral superior- 
ity of the first age of Christendom to those which pre- 
ceded and those which followed was very remarkable, 
and that such a fulfilment well corresponded to the sig- 
nificant act of the breathing of the spirit of goodness or 
holiness upon those to whom the words were addressed. 
But on this interpretation we need not insist. It is nec- 
essary to point it out in order to show that the passage 
is not clear from ambiguity. But it is enough if, as is 
commonly supposed, the words, by some peculiar turn of 
the Fourth Gospel, are identical in meaning with those 
in St. Matthew. In that case all that we have said of 
the address to Peter and the address to the disciples in 
the First Gospel applies equally to this address in the 
Fourth. 

II. Such, then, was the promise as spoken in the first 
instance. In the literal sense of the words this fulfil- 
ment of them can hardly occur again. 



148 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. VII. 

No other book of equal authority with the New Testa- 
ment has ever issued from mortal pen. No epoch has 
unirersai spoken on moral questions with a voice so 
application, powerful as the Apostolic age. Shakespeare, 
Milton, Bacon, and Hegel may be of a wider range. Yet 
they do not rise to the moral dignity of the best parts 
of the New Testament. When we leave the purely per- 
sonal and historical application of these words, then, as 
in all our Lord's words and precepts, the whole point of 
the words is, that they ate spoken, not to any one person 
or order of men, or succession of men, but to the whole 
Christian community of all time — to any in that com- 
munity that partake of the same spirit, and in propor- 
tion as they partake of the same moral qualities as filled 
the first hearers of the gospel. When it is sometimes 
alleged that the promise to Peter was exclusively ful- 
filled in the Bishops of Rome, who, centuries afterwards, 
were supposed to have been his successors, it would be 
just as reasonable, or we may say just as unreasonable, 
as to say that all the Bishops of Ephesus were specially 
loved by Jesus because they were supposed to have suc- 
ceeded St. John at Ephesus. What the most learned 
and the most gifted of all the Fathers, Origen,^ said of 
the promise to St. Peter in the sixteenth chapter of St. 
Matthew is at once the best proof of what was believed 
about it in early times, and also the best explanation of 
its application to later days : " He who is gifted with 
self-control enters the gate of heaven by the key of self- 
control. He who is just enters the gate of heaven by 
the key of justice. The Saviour gives to those who are 
not overcome by the gates of hell as many keys as there 
are virtues. Against him that judges unjustly, and does 

1 Origen on Matt. xvi. 19. Comp. ibid. De Orat. c. 28. An instructive col- 
lection of similar expressions from St. Augustine is given in an interesting dis- 
sertation on the ancient Mahing of Bishops, by the Rev. Dr. Harrison, vicar of 
Feuwick. 



Chap. VII.] UNIVERSAL APPLICATION. 149 

not bind on earth according to God's word, the gates of 
hell prevail ; but against whom the gates of hell do not 
prevail, he judges justly. If any who is not Peter, and 
has not the qualities here mentioned, believes that he 
can bind on earth like Peter, so that what he binds is 
bound in heaven, such an one is puffed up, not knowing 
the meaning of the Scriptures." 

That which is clear in the case of the promise to Peter 
is still more clear in the case of the promise in Matt. 
xviii. 18, and John xx. 23. It is obvious from the text 
in John xx. 23, that there is no special limitation to the 
Twelve. For at the meeting spoken of some of the 
Twelve were not there ; Thomas was absent, Matthias 
was not yet elected, Paul and Barnabas were not yet 
called. And also others were there besides the Eleven, 
for in the corresponding passage in Luke xxiv. 36-47, it 
would appear (if we take the narratives in their literal 
meaning) that the two disciples from Emmaus, who were 
not apostles, were present, and the evangelist here, as 
throughout his whole Gospel, never uses any other word 
than " disciples." What is thus clear from the actual 
passage in John xx. 23, is yet more clear from the con- 
text of Matt, xviii. 18. There, in the verses immediately 
preceding, phrase is heaped on phrase, and argument on 
argument, to show that the power of binding and loosing 
was addressed, not to any particular class within the 
circle of disciples, but to the whole body in its widest 
sense. Our Lord is there speaking of the forgiveness of 
offences. He requires the contending parties, if they 
cannot agree, to hear the Church — that is, the whole 
congregation or assembly ; to appeal, as it were, to the 
popular instinct of the whole community ; and He goes 
on to say that, if even two agree on a matter of this kind, 
wherever two or three are gathered together in His name, 
there is He in the midst of them. These passages, in 



150 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. VII. 

fact, form no exception to the universal rule of our Lord's 
discourses. Here, as elsewhere, as He said Himself, 
*'What I say unto you, I say unto all." "Peter," as 
St. Augustine says, "represents all good men, and the 
promise in St. John is addressed to all believers every- 
where." " These words," says a living divine, " like the 
eyes of the Lord, look every way, and may include all 
forgiveness, whenever or wheresoever any sins are re- 
mitted through the agency of men." ^ They belong to 
the same class of precepts as " Let your loins be girded 
and your lights burning," " Ye are the salt of the earth," 
" Ye are the light of the world." All have a share in 
their meaning, all have a share in their force, in propor- 
tion as we have received from Heaven any portion of 
that inspiration whereby we seek "to do and to think 
the things that be good."^ 

It was only when the minds of men had become con- 
fused by the introduction of limitations and alterations 
which had no connection with the original words that 
these promises and precepts began to change their mean- 
ing. The " Church," which once had meant the people, 
or the laity, came to mean the clergy. The declaration, 
" Ye are the light of the world," was understood to mean 
only those who were in holy orders. The promise to 
Peter came to be strangely confined to the Italian Prel- 
ates who lived on the banks of the Tiber. The words of 
St. John's Gospel, which had originally been intended to 
teach the mutual edification and independent insight into 
divine truth of all who were inspired by the Spirit of 
Christ, became limited to the second of the three orders' 
of the Christian ministry. But these are merely passing 
restrictions and mistakes. The general truth of the 

1 Pusey on Absolution, p. 32. 

2 Even those early Christian writers who restrict these words to a particular 
act, restrict them to baptism ; and baptism, according to the rules of the ancient 
Church, can be performed by any one. 



Chap. VII.] INFLUENCE OF THE LAITY. 151 

words themselves remains uiisliaken and still applicable 
to the general growth of Christian truth. 

The practical lesson of the passages is that which has 
been already indicated — namely, that the enlightening, 
elevating power of the Christian conscience is not con- 
fined to any profession or order, however sacred ; is ex- 
ercised not in virtue of any hereditary or transmitted 
succession, but in virtue of the spiritual discernment, the 
insight into truth and character, which has been vouch- 
safed to all good men, to all Christians, in proportion to 
their goodness, and wisdom, and discernment. This, as 
Origen says, is the true power of the keys; a power 
which may be exercised, and which is exercised, some- 
times by the teaching of a faithful pastor, sometimes b}^ 
the presence of an innocent child, sometimes by the ex- 
ample of a good mother, sometimes by the warning of a 
true friend, sometimes by the silent glance of just indig- 
nation, sometimes by the reading of a good book — above 
all, by the straightforward honesty of our own individual 
consciences, whether in dealing with ourselves or others. 

It may be worth while here again to recall the obvious 
processes by which the amelioration of mankind has taken 
place. We see it clearly on the large scale of ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^ 
history. Doubtless there have been long periods ^^^*^" 
when the chief enlightenment of the world has come from 
the clergy. In most Protestant and in some Catholic 
and Greek Churches the clergy, as a class, perhaps still 
do more than any other single class of men to keep alive 
a sense of goodness and truth. But there has never been 
a time when the laity have not had their share in the 
guidance of the Church ; and in proportion as Christian 
civilization has increased, in proportion as the clergy have 
done their duty in enlightening and teaching others, in 
that proportion the Christian influence, the binding and 
the loosing power of all good and gifted men, has in- 



152 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. VII. 

creased — in that proportion has the principle imphed in 
these passages received a deeper, wider signification. 

There have been ages when the clergy were coexten- 
sive with the educated class of mankind, and were thus 
the chief means of stimulating and purifying the moral 
standard of their age. But at all time, and specially 
since other professions have become " clerks," — that is, 
scholars and instructors, — the advancement of learning, 
the opening of the gates of heaven, has been as much the 
work of the Christian Church — that is, of the laity — as 
of the priesthood. By the highest rank of the whole pro- 
fession of the clergy — the Pontificate of Rome — the key 
of knowledge has been perhaps wielded less than by any 
other great institution in Christendom. Of the 256 prel- 
ates who have filled the bishopric of Rome, scarcely 
more than four have done anything by their writings to 
enlarge the boundaries of knowledge and to raise the 
moral perceptions of mankind — Leo the Great, Gregory 
the Great, and (in a higher degree) Benedict XIV. and 
Clement XIV. Occasional acts of toleration towards the 
Jews, the rectification of the calendar, and a few like ex- 
amples of enlightenment may be adduced. But, as a gen- 
eral rule, whatever else the Popes have done, they have 
not, in the Biblical sense, bound or loosed the moral 
duties of mankind. 

And, again, as to the clergy generally, the abolition of 
slavery, though supported by many excellent ecclesiastics, 
yet had for its chief promoters the laymen Wilberforce 
and Clarkson. What these virtuous and gifted men 
bound on earth was bound in heaven, what they loosed 
on earth was loosed in heaven, not because they had or 
had not been set apart for a special office, but because 
they had received a large measure of the Holy Spirit of 
God, which enabled them to see the good and refuse the 
evil of the times in which they lived. 



Chap. VII.] INFLUENCE OF THE LAITY. 153 

If the aspirations of one half of mediaeval Christen- 
dom after goodness were guided by the clerical work of 
Thomas a Kempis, another half must have been no less 
elevated by the lay work of the divine poem of Dante. 
If the revelation of God in the universe was partly dis- 
covered by Copernicus the ecclesiastic, it was more fully 
disclosed by the labors of Galileo the layman, which the 
clergy condemned. If the religion of England has been 
fed in large part by Hooker, by Butler, by Wesley, and 
by Arnold, it has also been fed, perhaps in a yet larger 
part, by Milton, by Bunyan, by Addison, by Cowper, and 
by Walter Scott. 

If we study the process by which false notions of mo- 
rality and religion have been dispersed, and true notions 
of morality and religion have been introduced, from Au- 
gustus to Charlemagne, from Charlemagne to Luther, 
from Luther to the present day (as unfolded in Mr. 
Lecky's four volumes), we shall find that the almost uni- 
form law by which the sins and superstitions of Christen- 
dom have been bound or loosed has been, first, that the 
action of some one conscience or some few consciences — 
whether of statesmen, students, priests, or soldiers — 
more enlightened, more Christ-like, than their fellows — 
has struck a new light, or unwound some old prejudice, 
or opened some new door into truth ; and then, that this 
light has been caught up, this opening has been widened 
by the gradual advance of Christian wisdom and knowl- 
edge in the mass. 

What is called the public opinion of any age may be 
in itself as misleading, as corrupt, as the opinion of any 
individual. It must be touched, corrected, purified by 
those higher intelligences and nobler hearts, which catch 
the light as mountain summits before the sunrise has 
reached the plains. But it is only when the light has 
reached the plains, only when public opinion has become 



154 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. VII. 

SO elevated by the action of the few, that Providence 
affixes its seal to the deed — that the binding or loosing 
is ratified in heaven. It is thus that Christian pubUc 
opinion is formed ; and when it is formed, the sins, which 
before reigned with a tyrannical sway, fade away and 
disappear. 

Such, for example, was the drunkenness of the upper 
classes in the last century. It penetrated all the higher 
society of the land. But when by a few resolute wills, 
here and there, now and then, there was created a better 
and purer standard of morals in this respect, it perished 
as if by an invisible blow. The whole of educated so- 
ciety had placed it under their ban, and that ban was 
ratified in heaven — was ratified by the course of Provi- 
dence. It is this same public opinion, which, if it can 
once be created in the humbler classes, will also be as 
powerful there. They also have, if they will, the same 
power of retaining, that is, of imprisoning, and condemn- 
ing, and exterminating this deadly enemy ; and by this 
means alone will it disappear from them as it has disap- 
peared from the society of others who were once as com- 
pletely slaves to it. 

So again, to pass to quite another form of evil, the 
violent personal scurrility that used once to disgrace our 
periodical literature. That, as a general rule, has almost 
entirely disappeared from the great leading journals of 
the day. On the whole they are temperately expressed, 
and conducted with reasonable fairness. The public has 
become too highly educated to endure the coarseness of 
former times. Bat in the more confined organs of opinion 
the old Adam still lingers. In some of those newspapers, 
which are called by a figure of speech our religious jour- 
nals, the scurrility and personal intolerance which once 
penetrated the great secular journals still abide. That 
also, we may trust, will gradually vanish as the religious 



Chap. VII.] ORDINATION. 155 

or ecclesiastical world becomes more penetrated with the 
true spirit of Christianity which has already taken pos- 
session of the lay world. 

III. It might be enough, for the purpose of this argu- 
ment, to have pointed out the original meaning of the 
sacred words, and their correspondence to the actual facts 
of history. But the subject could not be completed with- 
out touching, however slightly, on the curious limitation 
and perversion of them which have taken place in later 
times. This has in great part arisen from their 
introduction into the liturgical forms by which 
in some Christian Churches some of the clergy are ap- 
pointed to their functions. The words from St. John's 
Gospel are not, nor ever have been, used to describe the 
consecration of Bishops or Archbishops.^ They are not, 
nor ever have been, used in the ordination of Deacons — 
an order which, in the fourth century, exercised in some 
respects a power almost equal to that of the Episcopate, 
and in our own country has often been intrusted with the 
most important and exclusively pastoral functions — of 
instruction, visiting, and preaching. Where used, they 
are only used in the ordination of Presbyters or (as in 
the abridged form they are unfortunately called) Priests. 
And even for this limited object the introduction of the 
words is comparatively recent, and probably the result of 
misconception. It is certain that for the first twelve cen- 
turies they were never used for the ordination of any 
Christian minister. It is certain that in the whole East- 
ern Church they are never used at all for this purpose. 
It was not till the thirteenth century — the age when the 

1 In the English Office of Consecrating Bishops and Archbishops, the por- 
tion of the chapter which contains those words is one of the three alternative 
Gospels. But the fact that it is an alternative, and one rarely used, shows that 
it is not regarded as essential. They are also incorporated in a general prayer 
in the Consecration of Bishops first found in the Poitiers Ordinal, A. d. 500, re- 
printed by Baronius and Martene. It is contained in the Roman Pontifical. 



156 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. VII. 

materialistic tlieories of the sacraments and tlie extrava- 
gant pretensions of pontifical and sacerdotal power were 
at their height — that they were first introduced into the 
Ordinals of the Latin Church. From thence they were, 
at the Reformation, retained in the Ordination Service of 
the Episcopal Church of England, and of the Presby- 
terian Church of Lutheran Germ any. ^ 

The retention of these words in these two Churches 
may have been occasioned by various causes. It is clear 
that they have become a mere stumbling-block and stone 
of offence, partly as unintelligible, partly as giving rise to 
the most mistaken conclusions. Their retention is con- 
fessedly not in conformity, but in direct antagonism, 
with ancient and Catholic usages. It is a mere copy of 
a medigeval interpolation, which has hardly any more 
claim, on historical or theological grounds, to a place in 
the English or Lutheran Prayer Book than the admis- 
sion of the existence of Pope Joan or of the miracle of 
Bolsena. And, so far from these words being regarded 
as a necessary part of the validity of Holy Orders, such 
an assertion, if admitted, would of itself be fatal to the 
validity of all Holy Orders whatever ; for it would prove 
that every single ordination for the first twelve hundred 
years of Christianity was invalid, nay, more, that every 
present ordination in the Roman Church itself was in- 
valid, inasmuch as in the Ordinal itself these words do 
not occur in the essential parts of the ofiice, but only in 
an accidental adjunct of it. 

IV. But further, the phrase indicates, even in reference 
to the subject of Confession and Absolution, with which 
^ , . it has no direct connection, the fundamental 

Confession 

and Absoiu- trutli which is incompatible with the exclusive 

tion. -L 

possession of this privilege by the clergy. 

1 The whole antiquarian and critical side of the introduction of these words 
into the Latin and English Ordinal has been worked out with the utmost exact- 
ness and with the most searching inquiry by Archdeacon Reichel in the Quar- 
terly Review of October, 1877, • Ordination and Confession." 



Chap. VII.] CONFESSION. 157 

For the principle of the texts, as we have seen, teaches 
lis that we all have to bear each other's burden. There 
is no caste or order of men who can relieve us of this 
dread responsibility, of this noble privilege.- The clergy- 
man needs the advice and pardon of the gifted layman 
quite as much as the layman seeks the advice and pardon 
of the gifted clergyman. The brother seeks the forgive- 
ness of the brother whom he hath offended ; the child 
of the parent ; the neighbor of the neighbor. This in 
the earliest times was the real meaning of Confession. 
" Confess your faults," says St. James — to whom ? To 
the elders of the Church whom he had just mentioned ? 
To the Bishop, or the Priest, or the Deacon ? No. " Con- 
fess your faults one to another^ It is as though he said, 
" Let there be mutual confidence." Every one can do 
his neighbor some good ; every one can protest against 
some evil ; and the whole tone of the community shall 
thus be raised. 

The full sympathy which thus prevailed amongst the 
members of the infant Church no doubt soon died away. 
But its semblance was long continued in the only form 
of confession that was known for four centuries, namely, 
the acknowledgment of the faults of the penitent, not in 
private, but in public, to the whole congregation, who 
then publicly expressed their forgiveness. The substitu- 
tion of a single priest for a large congregation as the re- 
ceptacle of confession arose from the desire of avoiding 
the scandals occasioned by the primitive publicity. It 
was not till long afterwards that the notion sprang up of 
any special virtue attacliing to the forgiveness of a cler- 
gyman, or that any private or special confession was 
made to him. Even in the very heart of the Roman 
Mass is retained a testimony to the independence and 
equality in this respect of people and minister. There, 
in the most solemn ordinance of religion, the priest first 



158 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. VII. 

turns to the people and confesses his sins to them, and 
they publicly absolve him, in exactly the same form of 
words as he uses when they in their turn publicly confess 
their faults to him.^ This striking passage, standing as 
it does in the forefront of the Roman Missal, is one of 
the many variations in the Roman Church which, if fol- 
lowed out to its logical consequences, would correct some 
of the gravest errors which have sprung up within its 
pale. It has probably escaped attention from the dead 
language and the inaudible manner in which it is re- 
peated. But it is not the less significant in itself ; and 
had it been transferred to the English Prayer Book, 
where the vitality of the language and the more audible 
mode of reading the service would have brought it into 
prominence, it would have more than counterbalanced 
those two or three ambiguous passages on the subject 
which the Reformers left in the Liturgy. 

There is a story told of James I., who when, after in- 
dulging in a furious passion against a faithful servant,^ 
he found that it was under a mistake, sent for him im- 
mediately, would neither eat, drink, nor sleep till he saw 
him, and when the servant entered his chamber the King 
kneeled down and begged his pardon ; nor would he rise 
from his humble posture till he had compelled the as- 
tonished servant to pronounce the words of absolution. 

1 The Priest says, "Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti, Beatse Mariae semper Vir- 
gin!," etc., "et vobis, fratres, quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo, et opere, 
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper 
Virginem," etc., " et vos, fratres, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum." 
The attendants reply, " Misereatur tui Omnipotens Deus, et, dimissis peccatis 
tuis, perducat te ad vitam seternam." The Priest says Amen, and stands up. 
Then the attendants repeat the confession, only changing the words "vobis, 
fratres " and " vos fratres " into •' tibi, pater " and "te, pater," and the Priest 
replies in like words. Finally the Priest, signing himself with the sign of the 
cross, says, " Indulgentiam, absolutionem et remissionem peccatorum nostro- 
rum tribuet nobis Omnipotens et Misericors Dominus; " which is evidently a 
joint absolution for both himself and the people. The form "Ego absolve te" 
Is, as before observed, of a much later date. 

2 Aikin, Life of James I. (ii. 402). 



Chap. VII.] ITS TRUE APPLICATION. 159 

That was a grotesque but genuine form of penitence ; 
that was a grotesque but legitimate form of absolution. 
There was a story told during the Turkish war of 1877, 
that a Roumanian soldier, after having received the sac- 
raments from a priest on his death-bed, would not be 
satisfied till he had obtained an interview with the ex- 
cellent Princess of Roumania. To her he explained that 
he had tried to escape from the dangers of the battle by 
mutilating one of his fingers ; and against her and her 
husband, the Prince of Roumania, he felt that this offence 
had been committed. From the Princess, and not from 
the priest, he felt must the forgiveness come which alone 
could bring any comfort to him. That forgiveness was 
whispered into the dying man's ear by the Princess ; 
with that forgiveness, not sacerdotal, but truly human, 
and therefore truly divine, the penitent soldier passed in 
peace to his rest.^ In fact, the moment that we admit 
the efficacy of repentance, we deny the necessity of any 
special absolution. An incantation, of which the virtue 
rests in the words pronounced, is equally valid whether 
the person over whom it is pronounced is guilty or inno- 
cent, conscious or unconscious. But the moment that 
the moral condition of the recipient is acknowledged as a 
necessary element, that of itself becomes the chief part, 
and the repetition of certain words may be edifying, but 
is not essential. The welfare of the hearer's soul de- 
pends not on any external absolution, but on its own in- 
trinsic state. The value of any absolution or forgiveness 
depends not on the external condition of the man who 
pronounces it, but on the intrinsic truth of the forgive- 
ness. 

Not long ago, when a French ship foundered in the 
Atlantic, a brave French priest was overheard repeating 
the absolution in the last moments of life to a fellow- 

1 The Times, Nov. 2, 1877. 



160 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. VII. 

countryman. All honor to liim for the gallant discharge 
of what he believed to be his duty I But is there a sin- 
gle reflecting man, whether Catholic or Protestant, who 
would not feel that the intervention of a priest at that 
moment was in itself absolutely indifferent? At all 
times the Bible and the enlightened conscience repeat- 
edly assure us that that which commends a departing 
spirit to its Creator and Judge is not the accidental cir- 
cumstance of his listening to a particular form of words 
uttered by a particular person, but the sincerity of re- 
pentance, the uprightness, the humility, the purity, the 
faithfulness of the man himself. 

It may be a consolation to us to hear from well-known 
lips which speak to us with tenderness, with knowledge, 
and with justice, the assurance that we are regarded as 
innocent : it may be a consolation to hear with our out- 
ward ears the solemn declarations that the Supreme 
Father is always ready to receive the returning penitent ; 
that the soul which returns from evil and does what is 
lawful and right shall surely live. But this assurance, 
by the nature of the case, is well known to us already 
from hundreds of passages in the Bible, and from the 
knowledge of human nature. And also it can come from 
any one whom we respect, from any one whom we may 
have injured, from any one who will give us a true, dis- 
interested verdict on our worse and on our better quali- 
ties. It is finely described in a well-known tale — " The 
Heir of Redely ffe " — that when the obstinate Pharisa- 
ical youth, at last, in bitter remorse acknowledges his 
fault to the wife of the man whom he has mortally in- 
jured, she takes upon herself to console him and absolve 
him, and her absolution consists in repeating the words 
of the Psalmist : " The sacrifices of God are a troubled 
spirit ; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, wilt Thou 
not despise." No Pontifical decree could say more ; no 



Chap. VIL] ITS TRUE MEANING. 161 

true forgiveness could say less. Whenever any man is 
able to see clearly that his fellow-man has truly repented, 
or that a course of action is clear and right — then, who- 
ever he be, he can declare that promise of God's forgive- 
ness. In all cases each man must strive to act on his 
own judgment and on his own conscience. The first 
duty of the penitent is to try to minister to his own dis- 
ease. " The heart knoweth his own bitterness, and a 
stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy." 

Why should we faint or fear to live alone, 
Since all alone, so Heav'n has will'd, we die ? 

The next duty may be to get sound advice on his future 
course. But that advice can be given by any competent 
person, and the competency depends not on any minis- 
terial or sacerdotal character, but on personal insight into 
character to be found equally in layman and clergyman. 

It is a duty to cultivate the conviction that we all alike 
need to be guided and be forgiven, and to have our course 
made clear. All alike, according to the several gifts 
which God has bestowed on the vast family of mankind, 
have the power to forgive, to assist, to enlighten each 
other. In the last resort there is no one to be considered 
or regarded, but our own immortal struggling souls and 
the One eternally Just and Merciful God. Our own re- 
sponsibility must be maintained without shifting it to the 
keeping of any one else. We, all of us, each with some 
different gift, are the inheritors of the promise to bind 
and to loose — that is, to warn and to console our breth- 
ren, as we in like manner hope to be warned and con- 
soled by them. 

V. Such is the summary of this question needlessly 
complicated by irrelevant discussions. The texts on 
which the popular theory and practice of abso- 
lution are grounded are, as we have seen, alto- 
gether beside the purpose. They no more relate to it 

IL 



Its true 
meanina: 



162 ABSOLUTION. [Chap. VII. 

than the promise to Peter relates to the Popes of Rome, 
or than Isaiah's description of the ruin of the Assyrian 
King under the figure of Lucifer relates to the Fall of 
the Angels, or than the two swords at the Last Supper 
relate to the spiritual and secular jurisdiction, or than 
the sun and moon in the first chapter of Genesis relate to 
the Pope and the Emperor. In all these cases, the mis- 
interpretation has been long and persistent ; in all these, 
it is acknowledged by all scholars, outside the Roman 
communion, that they are absolutely without foundation. 
And, as the misinterpretation of the texts on which 
the theory of Episcopal or Presbyterian absolution rests 
will die out before a sound understanding of the Biblical 
records, so also the theory and practice itself, though 
with occasional recrudescences, will probably die out 
with the advance of civilization. The true power of the 
clergy will not be diminished but strengthened by the 
loss of this fictitious attribute. Noma of the Fitful Head 
was a happier and more useful member of society after 
she abandoned her magical arts than when she practised 
them. In proportion as England has become, and in 
proportion as it will yet more become, a truly free and 
truly educated people, able of itself to bind what ought 
to be bound, and to loose what ought to be loosed, in 
that proportion will the belief in priestly absolution van- 
ish, just as the belief in wizards and necromancers has 
vanished before the advance of science. As alchemy has 
disappeared to give place to chemistry, as astrology has 
given way to astronomy, as monastic celibacy has given 
way to domestic purity, as bull-fights and bear-baits have 
given way to innocent and elevating amusements, as scho- 
lastic casuistry has bowed before the philosophy of Bacon 
and Pascal, so will the belief in the magical offices of a 
sacerdotal caste vanish before the growth of manly Cbris- 
tiaii indejDendence and generous Christian sympathy. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. 

At a time when all Churches are or ought to be occu- 
pied with so many important questions, when so many 
interesting inquiries have arisen with regard to the ori- 
gin and the interpretation of the Sacred Books, when the 
adjustment of science and theology needs more than ever 
to be properly balanced, when the framework of the 
English Prayer Book requires so many changes and ex- 
pansions in order to meet the wants of the time, when 
measures for the conciliation of our Nonconformist breth- 
ren press so closely on the hearts and consciences of those 
who care for peace and truth, when so many social and 
political problems are crying for solution, some apology 
is due for treating of a subject so apparently trivial as 
the Vestments of the Clergy. But, inasmuch as it has 
nevertheless occupied considerable attention in the Eng- 
lish Church, its discussion cannot be altogether out of 
place. 

What has to be said will be divided into two parts: 
the first, an antiquarian investigation into the origin of 
ecclesiastical vestments ; the second, some practical re- 
marks on the present state of the controversy in Eng- 
land. 

I. The antiquarian investigation of this matter is not 
in itself devoid of interest. It belongs to the general 
survey of the origin of usages and customs in the early 
ages of Christianity. The conclusion to which it leads 
is that the dress of the clergy had no distinct intention — 



164 ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. [Chap. VIII. 

symbolical, sacerdotal, sacrificial, or mystical; but orig- 
inated simply in the fashions common to the whole com- 
munity of the Roman Empire during the three first cen- 
turies. 

There is nothing new to be said in favor of this con- 
clusion. But it has nevertheless been, and is still, per- 
sistently denied. In spite of the assertion to the contrary 
of Cardinal Bona, Pere Thomassin, Dr. Rock, and our 
own lamented Wharton Marriott, it has been asserted, 
both by the admirers and depredators of clerical vest- 
ments, that they were borrowed in the first instance (to 
use Milton's phrase in his splendid invective against the 
English clergy) "from Aaron's wardrobe or the Flamen's 
vestry ; " that they are intrinsically marks of distinction 
between the clergy and the laity, between the Eucharist 
and every other religious service, between a sacerdotal 
and an anti-sacerdotal view of the Christian ministry — 
that if they are abolished, all is lost to the idea of a 
Christian priesthood ; that if they are retained, all is 
gained. 

In face then of these reiterated statements, it may not 
be out of place to prove that every one of them is not 
only not true, but is the reverse of the truth; that if 
they symbolize anything, they symbolize ideas the con- 
trary of those now ascribed to them. 

II. Let us, in our mind's eye, dress up a lay figure at 

the time of the Christian era, when the same general 

costume pervaded all classes of the Roman Em- 

ancient pirc, from Palestine to Spain, very much as the 

costume of the nineteenth century pervades at 

least all the upper classes of Europe now. 

The Roman, 1 Greek, or Syrian, whether gentleman or 

1 As the vestments in question are chiefly those of the Latin Church, these 
remarks apply more to the dress of the Western than of the Eastern population 
of the Empire. But in general (as appears even from the New Testament 
alone, without referring to secular authorities) the dress even of the Syrian 
peasants was substantially the same as that of the Greek or the Roman. 



Chap. VIII.] THE INNER DRESS. 165 

peasant, unless in exceptional cases, had no hat, no coat, 
no waistcoat, and no trousers. He had shoes or sandals; 
he wore next his skin, first, a shirt or jacket, double or 
single ; then a long shawl or plaid ; and again, especially 
in the later Roman period, a cloak or overcoat.^ 

1. The first, or inner garb, if we strip the ancient Ro- 
man to his shirt, was what is called in classical Greek, 
chiton ; in classical Latin, tunica ; a woollen 
vest, which sometimes had beneath it another 
fitting close to the skin, called suhucula^ or interula^ or, 
in the case of soldiers, camisiaP' It is this name of cami- 
sia, which, under the name of chemise, has gradually su- 
perseded the others, and which has been perpetuated in 
ecclesiastical phraseology under another synonym derived 
from its white color (for shirts, with the ancients as with 
the moderns, were usually white'), and hence it came to 
be called an alh. 

This is the dress which became appropriated specially 
to the Deacon. He, as the working-man of the clergy, 
officiated, as it were, in his shirt sleeves. 

But as the homeliest garments are subject to the va- 
rieties of fashion, the shirt, the chemise, the camisia, 
whether of Pagan or Christian, had two forms.^ The 
simpler or more ancient was an under-shirt with short 
sleeves, or rather with no sleeves at all, called in Greek ^ 
exomis, in Latin colohium. The more costly form may be 
compared to the shirt of Charles IL, with fine ruffles. 

J- For the general di'ess, see, for the Greek, Bekker's Chm'icles, pp. 402-20; 
for the Roman, Bekker's Gallus, pp. 401-30; for the Syrian, Smith's Dictionary 
of the Bible, under Dress; for the ecclesiastical dresses, Smith's Dictionary of 
Christian Antiquities, under the different words. 

^ St. Jerome, Epist. 64, ad Fahiolam. He apologizes for using so vulgar a 
word as camisia. 

3 Bona 1, 14; Thomassin, Vetus et Nova Disciplina, ii. 2, 49. That in 
Greece there was generally an under shirt and an outer shirt is proved in Char-- 
ides, p. 406. 

4 Charicles, 415. 



166 ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. [Chap. VIH. 

It was called the Dalmatica^ from its birthplace Dalma- 
tia — in the same way as the cravats of the French in 
the seventeenth century were called Steinkerks from the 
battle of that name ; or the Ulsters of the present day 
from the Northern province of Ireland. The first ^ per- 
sons recorded to have worn it are the infamous Emperors 
Commodus and Heliogabalus. It was thought an out- 
rage on all propriety when Heliogabalus appeared pub- 
licly in this dress in the streets after dinner, calling him- 
self a second Fabius or Scipio, because it was the sort of 
frock which the Cornel ii or Fabii were wont to wear in 
their childhood when they were naughty boys. It was 
as if some English magnate were to walk up St. James's 
Street in his dressing-gown. But the fashion spread rap- 
idly, and thirty years afterwards appears as the dress of 
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, when led out to death — 
not, however, in that instance as his outer garment. It 
became fixed as the name of the dress of the deacon after 
the time of Constantine, when it superseded the original 
colohium ; and although it quickly spread to the other 
orders, it is evident that it was, for the reasons above 
given, particularly suitable to the inferior clergy, who, 
as having nothing over it, would seem to require a more 
elaborate shirt. This was the first element of ecclesias- 
tical vestments, as deacons were the first elements of a 
Christian ministry. 

In later times, after the invasion of the Northern bar- 
barians, this shirt, which must, perhaps, always have been 
worn over some thicker garment next the skin, was drawn 
over the fur coat, sheepskin, or otter skin, the pellisse of 
the Northern nations ; and hence in the twelfth century 
arose the barbarous name of super-jyellieium^ or surplice 
— the overfur. Its name indicates that it is the latest 
of ecclesiastical vestments, and though, like all the others, 

1 Bingham, vi. 4, 19. 



Chap. VIII.] THE SHAWL. 167 

generally worn ^ both by clergy and lait}^, in-doors and 
out-of-doors, is the most remote m descent from primitive 
times. Another form of this dress — also, as its German 
name implies, dating from the invasion of the barbarians 
— was the rochet or rocket^ "the little rock^'' or "coat" 
worn by the mediaeval bishops out-of-doors on all occa- 
sions, except when they went out hunting ; and which 
now is to them what the surplice is to presbyters. The 
lawn sleeves ^ are merely an addition to make up for the 
long-flowing sleeves of the surplice. 

But in both cases the fur coat within was the usual 
dress, of which the overfur was, as it were, merely the 
mask. Charlemagne in winter wore an otter-skin breast- 
plate ^ and hunted in sheepskin. The butcher of Rouen, 
who was saved alone out of the crew of the Blanche Nef^ 
wore a sheepskin. St. Martin, Apostle of the Gauls, and 
the first Bishop of Tours, when he ofiiciated wore also a 
sheepskin — a fur coat (as it would seem with no surplice 
over it, and with no sleeves), and consecrated the Eu- 
charistic elements with his bare arms, which came through 
the sheepskin, like those of the sturdy deacons who had 
brandished their sinewy arms out of the holes of their 
colohium. 

2. The second part of the dress was a shawl or blanket, 
wrapt round the shoulders over the shirt, in Greek hima- 
tion. in Latin toqa. or pallium. This also was 

n , . ^ ^ -i The shawl. 

usually white as the common color or the an- 
cient dress, which is still perpetuated in the white flannel 
robe of the Pope, but marked with a broad purple stripe. 
This is what appears, in the early portion of the fourth 
century, as the dress equally of ecclesiastics and laity. 
After the fourth century the Christians affected the use 

1 Thomassin, ii. 2, 48. 

2 Hody, On Convocation. 

3 Thomassin, ii. 2, c. 48, 69. 



168 ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. [Chap. VIH. 

of black shawls (like the Geneva divines of the sixteenth 
century), in order to imitate the philosophers and as- 
cetics. Of the general adoption of the black dress, an 
interesting illustration is given in the case of the Bishop 
Sisinnius, who chose to wear white, and when he was 
asked what command in Scripture he found for liis white 
surplice, replied, '' What command is there for wearing 
black ? " ^ For reasons which will appear immediately, 
there are fewer traces of this part of the ancient dress 
than of any other in the vestments of the clergy. The 
only relic of the Roman toga or |?a??mwi remains in the 
fall of an Archbishop, which is only the string which 
held it together, or the broad stripe which marked its 
surface. 

3. The third part of the ancient dress, and that from 
which the larger part of the ecclesiastical vestments are 
The over- dcrivcd, was the overcoat, in Latin lacerna or 
^°^*- pcenula^ in Greek phoelone. It ought perhaps 

to have been worn over the toga^ but was sometimes for 
convenience worn instead of it, and at last, after the dis- 
continuance of the toga? — which for practical purposes 
came to be much like our evening dress coat, and was 
thus, after the Empire, only worn on official occasions, — 
the overcoat came to be the usual dress, as frock coats, 
shooting coats, and the like are worn in general morning 
society in England. What had once been regarded only 
as a rough soldier's garb, unsuitable within the city, came 
to be worn everywhere. It was for the most part like a 
poncho, or cape, or burnous,^ but it consisted of several 
varieties. 

There was the hirrJius^ or scarlet cloak, worn by Atha- 
nasius, as a wealthy person, when he visited the mys- 

1 Bingham, vi. 4, 19; Socrates, vi. 20; Thomassin, i. 2-24. 

2 MaiTiott, Ve&tiarium^ p. xii. 

3 So it is translated in tlie Coptic Liturgy. 



Chap. VIIL] THE OVERCOAT. 169 

terious lady ^ in Alexandria, but not thought by Augus- 
tine suitable to his poverty. There was the caracalla^ a 
long overall, brought by Antoninus Bassianus from 
France, whence he derived his name — and it was this 
which was corrupted into casacalla^ casaca^ and finally 
cassock. It had a hood, and was called in Greek amphi- 
balus, and as such appears in the account of the persecu- 
tion of St. Alban, ^ where, by a strange confusion, the 
name of Amphibalus has been supposed to represent the 
name of a saint. The word cassock., although highly es- 
teemed, has never reached so high a pitch of reverence. 

The same form of dress was also called casula, a slang 
name used by the Italian laborers ^ for the capote^ which 
they called " their little house," as ''tile" is — or was 
a short time ago — used for a " hat," and as " coat " is 
the same word as "cote," or "cottage." It is this which 
took the name of chasuble, and was afterwards especially 
known as the out-door garment of the clergy, as the sa- 
gum was of the laity, and was not adopted as a vestment 
for sacred services before the ninth century. Another 
name by which it was called was planeta, ' ' the wan- 
derer," because it wandered loosely over the body, as one 
of these overcoats in our day has been called " zephyr." 
This was the common overcoat of the wealthier, as the 
casula of the humbler classes. 

Another form of overcoat was the capa., or cop a, " the 
hood " — also called the pluviale.,^ or " waterproof," to be 
worn in rainy weather out-of-doors. It was this cape, or 
cope, that St. Martin divided with the beggar at the gates 
of Amiens, and hence (according to one derivation of the 
word) the capella., or chapel., where the fragment of his 
cape was preserved. It is the vestment of which the sec- 

1 Marriott, pp. Ivi., 16. 

2 Bede, ff. E. i. 6. 

3 Columella, Isidore, Augustine; see Marriott, pp. 228, 202. 

4 Marriott, p. 229. 



170 ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. [Chap. YIIL 

ular use has longest retained its hold, having been worn 
by Bishops in Parliament, by Canons at coronations, and 
by lay vicars, almsmen and the like, on other similar oc- 
casions, till quite recently. 

Another form of the same garb, though of a lighter 
texture, and chiefl^^ used by ladies in riding, was the cy- 
mar^ or chimere^^ of which the trace still lingers in the 
bishop's satin robe, which so vexed the soul of Bishop 
Hooper, and which had to be forced on him almost at 
the point of the sword — but which now apparently is 
cast 2 aside by advocates of the modern use of clerical 
vestments. 

The mitre, as worn in the Eastern Church, may still 
be seen in the museums of Russia, as the caps or turbans, 
worn on festive occasions in ancient days by princes and 
nobles, and even to this day by the peasant women. The 
division into two points, which appears in Western mitres, 
is only the mark of the crease which is the consequence 
of its having been, like an opera hat, folded and carried 
under the arm. 

The stole ^ (which, in Greek, is simply another word 
for the overcoat, or poenida) in the ninth century came 
to be used for the " orarium." This was a simple hand- 
kerchief for blowing the nose, or wiping oif the sweat 
from the face. These handkerchiefs, on state occasions, 
were used as ribbons, streamers, or scarfs ; and hence 
their adoption by the deacons, who had little else to dis- 
tinguish them. When Sir James Brooke first returned 
from Borneo, where the only sign of royalty was to hold 
a kerchief in the hand, he retained the practice in Eng- 
land. 

1 Archceologia, xxx. 27. 

2 See the recent account of the installation of the Bishop of Capetown. 

s Thomassin, 8, 245. He is perplexed, and jnstlv, by the difficulty of under- 
standing how the ^^stola,''' which was the word for the whole dress, should 
have been appropriated to such a small matter as the handkerchief. An ex- 
planation is attempted in Marriott, pp. 75, 84, 90, 112, 115, Ixiii. 



Chap. VIIL] THEIR SECULAR ORIGIN. 171 

III. Before we pass to any practical application, it 
may be remarked that this historical inquiry has a two- 
fold interest. First, the condition of the early Their secu- 
Church, which is indicated in this matter of i*^ origin, 
dress, is but one of a hundred similar examples of the 
secular and social origin of many usages which are now 
regarded as purely ecclesiastical, and yet more, of the 
close connection, or rather identity, of common and re- 
ligious, of lay and clerical life, which it has been the ef- 
fort of fifteen centuries to rend asunder. One of the 
treasures 1 which King Edward III. presented to West- 
minster Abbey, were " the vestments in which St. Peter 
was wont to celebrate mass." What those mediaeval rel- 
ics were we know not, but what the actual vestment of 
St. Peter was we know perfectly well — it was a *' fish- 
er's coat 2 cast about his naked body." In like manner, 
the Church of Rome itself is not so far wrong when it ex- 
hibits in St. John Lateran, the altar at which St. Peter 
fufilled — if he ever did fulfil — the same functions. It 
is not a stone or marble monument, but a rough wooden 
table, such as would have been used at any common 
meal. And the churches in which, we do not say St. 
Peter, for there were no churches in his time, but in 
which the Bishops of the third and fourth centuries offi- 
ciated, are not copies of Jewish or Pagan temples, but of 
town-halls and courts of justice. And the posture in 
which they officiated was not that of the modern Roman 
priest, with his back to the people, but that of the ancient 
Roman prsetor,-^ facing the people — for whose sake he 
was there. And the Latin language, now regarded as 
consecrated to religious purposes, was but the vulgar dia- 

1 Adam de Murimuth, Harl. MS. 565, vol. 206. 

2 In like manner the only mention of St. Paul's vestments is the allusion to 
his cloak — ih^ phcelone — described in p. 168. The casual notice of itself pre- 
cludes the notion of a sacred vestment. 2 Tim. iv. 13. 

3 See the chapters on the Basilica and on the Pope. 



172 ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. [Chap. Yin. 

lect of the Italian peasants. And the Eucharist itself 
was the daily social meal, in which the only sacrifice of- 
fered was the natural thanksgiving, offered not by the 
presiding minister, but by all those who brought their 
contributions from the kindly fruits of the earth. 

We do not deny that in those early ages there were 
many magical and mystical notions afloat. In a society 
where the whole atmosphere was still redolent of strange 
rites, of Pagan witchcraft and demonology, there is quite 
enough to make us rejoice that even the mediaeval Church 
had, in some respects, made a great advance on the 
Church of the first ages. What we maintain is, that in 
the matter of vestments, as in many other respects, the 
primitive Church was not infected by these superstitions, 
and is a witness against them. They are incontrovertible 
proofs that there was a large mass of sentiment and of 
usage, which was not only not mediseval, not hierarchi- 
cal, but the very reverse ; a mine of Protestantism — of 
Quakerism if we will — which remained there to ex- 
plode, when the time came, into the European Reforma- 
j:ion. They coincide with the fact which Bishop Light- 
foot has proved in his unanswerable Essay,^ that the idea 
of a separate clerical priesthood was unknown to the early 
Church. They remain in the ancient Roman ritual, with 
other well-known discordant elements, a living protest 
against the modern theories which have been engrafted 
upon it. 

Secondly, there is the interest of following out the 
transformation of these names and garments. How early 
Their trans- ^^^ transition from secular to sacred use took 
formation. ^^^^^^ -j. -g (jif£cult to determine ; but it was 
gradually, and by unequal steps. It is said ^ that even to 
the ninth century there were Eastern clergy who cele- 

1 Bishop Ligbtfoot's Commentary on the Philippians, pp. 247-66. 

2 Marriott, p. Ivii. 



Chap. VIII.] THEIR TRANSFORMATION. 173 

brated the Eucharist in their common costume. In the 
original Benedictme rule the conventual dress was so well 
understood to be merely the ordinary dress of the neigh- 
boring peasants, that in the sketches of early monastic 
life at Monte Casino the monks are represented in blue, 
green, or black, with absolute indifference. But now 
the distinction between the lay and clerical dress, which 
once existed nowhere, has become universal. It is not 
confined to ancient or to Episcopal Churches. It is found 
in the Churches of Presbyterians and Nonconformists. 
The extreme simplicity of the utmost " dissidence of Dis- 
sent " has, in this respect, departed further from primitive 
practice than it has from any Pontifical or ritual splen- 
dor. A distinguished Baptist minister, one of the most 
popular preachers, and one of the most powerful ecclesi- 
astics in London, was shocked to find that he could not 
preach in Calvin's church at Geneva without adopting 
the gown, and naturally refused to wear it except under 
protest. But even he, in his London Tabernacle, had 
alread}^ fallen away from the primitive simplicity which 
acknowledged no difference of dress between the clergy 
and the laity, — for he as well as all other ministers (it is 
believed) has adopted the black dress which no layman 
would think of using except as an evening costume. The 
clergy of the Church of England have either adopted the 
white surplice, once the common frock, drawn, as it has 
been seen, over the fur of our skin-clad ancestors, or else 
have, in a few instances, retained or restored the shreds 
and patches of the clothes worn by Roman nobles and 
laborers. The Roman clergy have done the same, but in 
a more elaborate form. 

In all, the process has been alike. First the early 
Christians, not the clergy only but the laity as well, 
when they came to their public assemblies, wore indeed 
their ordinary clothes, but took care that they should be 



174 ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. [Chap. VIIL 

clean. The Pelagians,^ and the more ascetic clergy, in- 
sisted on coming in rags, but this was contrary to the 
more moderate and more general sentiment. 

Next, it was natural that the colors and forms chosen 
for their Sunday clothes should be of a more grave and 
sober tint, as that of the Quakers in Charles the Second's 
time. " As there is a garb proper for soldiers, sailors, 
and magistrates,^ so," says Clement of Alexandria, 
" there is a garb befitting the sobriety of Christians." 

Then came the process which belongs to all society in 
every age and which we see actually going on before our 
eyes — namel}^, that what in ordinary life is liable to the 
rapid transitions of fashion, in certain classes becomes 
fixed at a particular moment ; and then — though again 
in its turn undergoing new changes of fashion, yet re- 
tains something of its old form or name ; and finally en- 
genders in fanciful minds fanciful reflections as far as 
possible removed from the original meaning of these gar- 
ments. 

Take for example the Avigs of Bishops. First, there 
was the long flowing hair of the Cavaliers. Then when 
this was cut short came the long flowing wigs in their 
places. Then these were dropped except by the learned 
professions. Then they were dropped by the lawyers ex- 
cept in court. Then the clergy laid them aside, with the 
exception of the bishops. Then the bishops laid them 
aside with the exception of the archbishops. Then the 
last archbishop laid his wig aside except on official occa- 
sions. And now even the archbishop has dropped it. 
But it is easy to see that, had it been retained, it might 
have passed like the pall into the mystic symbol of the 
archiepiscopate, patriarchate, or we know not what. 
Bands again sprang from the broad ^ white collars, which 

1 Thomassin, i. 2, 43. 2 Marriott, p. xxv. 

'^ In the Lutheran Church the same fate has befallen the ruff. 



Chap. VIII.] THEIR TRANSFORMATION. 175 

fell over the shoulders of the higher and middle classes — 
whether Cavalier or Puritan — Cromwell and Bunyan, 
no less than Clarendon and Hammond. Then tliese were 
confined to the clergy ; then reduced to a single white 
plait ; then divided into two parts ; then symbolized to 
mean the two tables of the law, the two sacraments, or 
the cloven tongues ; then, from a supposed connection 
with Puritanism, or from a sense of inconvenience, ceased 
to be worn, or worn only by the more old-fashioned of the 
clergy ; so as to be regarded by the younger generation 
as a symbol of Puritan custom or doctrine. Just so, and 
with as much reason, did the surplice in the Middle Ages, 
from its position as a frock or pinafore over the fur coat, 
come to be regarded as an emblem of imputed righteous- 
ness over the skins in which were clothed our first par- 
ents ; just so did the turban or mitra when divided by 
its crease come to be regarded as the cloven tongue; just 
so did the handkerchief with which the Roman gentry 
wiped their faces come to be regarded in the fifth cen- 
tury as wings of angels, and in the seventh as the yoke of 
Christian life. Just so have the ponchos and waterproofs 
of the Roman peasants and laborers come in the nine- 
teenth century to be regarded as emblems of Sacrifice, 
Priesthood, Real Presence, communion with the universal 
Church, Christian or ecclesiastical virtues. 

It is hardly necessary to answer detailed objections to 
a statement of which the general truth is acknowledged 
by all the chief authorities on the subject, as well as con- 
firmed by the general analogy of the origin of the Chris- 
tian usages. In fact, the Roman Church has at times 
even gloried in the secular origin of its sacred vestments, 
and based their adoption on the grant by Constantino (in 
his forged donation) of his own imperial garments to the 
Pope, and has then added that they were occasionally 
transferred back to the secular princes, — as when Alex- 



176 ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. [Chap. VIIL 

ander II. granted to the Duke of Bohemia the use of the 
mitre, and Alexander III. to the Doge of Venice the use 
of an umbrella like his own, — and that the Emperor 
wore the same pall or mantle that was used by Popes in 
the most sacred offices.^ 

The only indications adduced to the contrary are : — 

1. The golden plate said to have been worn by St. 
John and St. James. But even if Bishop Lightfoot had 
not amply ^ proved that this is a mere metaphor, it woidd 
not avail, for a golden plate has never been adopted as 
part of the ecclesiastical ornaments. 

2. The mention in the Clementine Liturgy that the 
bishop at a certain moment of the service puts on a 
wbite ^ garment. But this is an exception which proves 
the rule. Of all the liturgies, this is the only one which 
has any indication of dress — and the Clementine Liturg}'- 
is so saturated with interpolations of all kinds, some even 
heretical, that its text cannot be seriously used as an 
authentic witness. 

3. Jerome, in his Commentary on Ezekiel (c. 44), says 
that " Divine religion has one habit in service, another 
in use in common life." But he is speaking here of the 
trousers of the Jewish priests : and in all the allegorical 
interpretations he gives here, or in his letter to Fabiola, 
of the garments of the Jewish priesthood, there is not 
one which points to the sacerdotal character of the Chris- 
tian ministry ; and in this very passage, shortly before, 
he says, '' Thus we learn that we ought not to enter the 
Holy of Holies with any sort of every-day clothing soiled 
from the use of life, but handle the Lord's sacraments 
with a clean conscieiice and clean elothesy It is evident 
that, so far as this is not metaphorical, it means only that 

1 Thomassin, i. 2, c. 45, s. 52. 

2 Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians, p. 252. 

8 AaiJi-n-pav efrQ^Ta, as in the next quotation from Jerome, probably means 
" clean, white gown." 



Chap. VIII.] THEIR INSIGNIFICANCE. 177 

(according to the description of the first stage of the 
process of adaptation given above) the clothes of Chris- 
tians in public worship should not be dirty, but clean. 

There may possibly be other apparent exceptions, as, 
no doubt, in later Roman writers there are contradictory 
statements. But the general current of practice and 
opinion during the early ages is that which is well summed 
up by the Jesuit Sirmondus,^ as by our own Bingham : 
" The color and form of dress was in the beginning the 
same for ecclesiastics and laymen." 

Should there be any counter statements or counter facts 
scattered here and there through the ancient customs or 
literature of the Latin Church, it is no more than is to 
be expected from the heterogeneous forms which any 
large historical system embraces within itself. 

IV. We now proceed to the practical remarks which 
this part suggests. 

1. First, it is not useless to show that the significance 
of these dresses as alleged, both in attack and defence, 
rests on no historical foundation. It may be rj,^^^^ ;nj,jg. 
said, perhaps, that the fact of the secular origin "i^^*°^^- 
of these garments does not exclude their importance when, 
in after-times, symbolical significations were attached to 
them ; and possibly it may be urged that the most un- 
questionably sacerdotal symbols were, in the first instance, 
drawn from homelier objects. But there is this wide dis- 
tinction between the origin of the Christian ecclesiastical 
vestments and of those of other religions. The Christian 
dress, as we have indicated, was intended, in its origin, 
not to separate the minister from the people, but to make 
him, in outward show and appearance, exactly the same. 
The Jewish high-priest and the priestly tribe were, on 
the contrary, as in other matters, so in their dress, from 
the very first intended to be thereby separated, at least in 

1 See Marriott, p. 43 ; Tliomassin, 1. 2, 43. 
J2 



178 ECCLESIASTICAL VESTMENTS. [Chap. YIIL 

their public ministrations, as far as possible from the rest 
of the community. It would have been perfectly easy, 
had the Christian Church of the first and second centuries 
been possessed with the idea of carr^dng on the Jewish 
priesthood, to have adopted either the very dress worn 
by the Jewish priests, or some other dress equally dis- 
tinctive. The Jewish priest was distinguished from his 
countrymen by his bare feet, by his trousers, by his white 
linen robe, by his sash thirty-two yards long,^ by his 
fillet, by his tippet or ephod. ; the high-priest by his breast- 
plate, by his bells, and by his pomegranates ; and these 
vestments were regarded as so indispensable to his office 
that the high-priesthood was at last actually conveyed 
from predecessor to successor by the act of handing them 
on to each high-priest ; the possession of the vestments, 
in fact, conferred the office itself. Nothing whatever of 
the kind was done, or, we may add, even in the wildest 
flights of modern superstition has been done, with the 
vestments of the Christian clergy. Neither trousers,^ 
nor breastplate, nor bells, nor pomegranates, nor long 
winding sash, nor naked feet, have ever been regarded, 
and certainly were not in the earl 3^ ages regarded, as 
part of the dress or undress of the Christian minister ; 
nor was the act of ordination ever performed by the 
transfer of chasuble, or lawn sleeves, or cassock. The 
whole stress of the theological argument in favor of the 
importance of these dresses depends on proving that 
such as they may by any one now be supposed to be in 
intention and in significance, such they were in the early 
ages. It is alleged that, by parting with them, we part 
with a primitive doctrine of the Church. But, if the 
facts which we have stated are correct, the connection 

1 Bahr's SymhoUk, p. 68. 

2 In Jerome's letter to Fabiola {Ejj. 64), containing an elaborate expositio-i of 
the dresses of the Jewish priests, there is not a word to indicate that they were 
adopted by the Christian clergy. 



Chap. VUL] THEIR INSIGNIFICANCE. 179 

between these dresses and the sacerdotal theories with 
which they have been entangled is cut off at the very 
root. Unless it can be shown that they were sacerdotal 
in the second or third centuries, it is wholly irrelevant to 
allege that they became sacerdotal in the thirteenth or 
the nineteenth centuries. Whatever sacerdotal, or sym- 
bolical, or sacramental associations have been attached 
to them may be mediseval, but certainly are not prim- 
itive ; and those who wish to preserve the substance of 
the primitive usage should officiate, not in the dresses 
which are at present worn in Roman, Anglican, and 
Nonconformist Churches, but in the every-day dress of 
common life — in overcoats, or smock-frocks, or shirt- 
sleeves, according as they belonged to the higher or in- 
ferior grade of the Christian ministry. We are not 
arguing in favor of such a return to primitive usage. In 
this, as in a thousand other cases, it is the depth of ret- 
rograde absurdity to suppose that we are to throw off 
the garb, or the institutions, or the language of civiUza- 
tion, in order to accommodate ourselves to the literal 
platform of the early ages. Matthew Arnold well ob- 
serves that to declaim against bishops in the House of 
Lords, or against the Privy Council, because St. Paul 
knew nothing of them, is just as unreasonable as it would 
be to declaim against the wearing of braces, because 
St. Paul wore no braces. And so, on the other hand, to 
insist on extinguishing the black coat or the black gown 
of the Nonconformist minister, or the white surplice of 
the Anglican minister, or the red stockings of the Roman 
cardinal, because they are not the ordinary every-day 
dress which is now worn, or would have been worn in 
early times, would be as superstitious as the vulgar ob- 
jection to Church establishments. There may be reasons 
against ecclesiastical vestments of all kinds. But the 
fact of their being modern is not of itself against them, 



180 ECCLESIASTICAL DEESSES. [Chap. YIII. 

unless we insist on making them essential as containing 
ideas which they do not, and never were intended to, 
symbolize. 

2. But secondly, it ma}" be said, partly by the oppo- 
nents and partly by the advocates of these vestments, 
Their con- that, whatever may be the history of their 
trasts. origin, all that we have practically now to con- 

sider is the purpose to which they are at present applied. 
It was maintained not long ago by a distinguished polit- 
ical leader, that to treat these badges with indifference 
would be no less absurd than to treat the Red Flag as 
merely a piece of bunting, whereas it really represents 
anarchy and revolution and must be dealt with accord- 
ingly. We venture to think that this very illustration 
furnishes an answer to the allegations of importance on 
the one side or the other brought to bear upon this ques- 
tion. No doubt with the uneducated and ill-educated of 
all classes a superficial badge or color often outweighs 
every other consideration. It is within the memory of 
living persons in Norfolk, where party feeling ran higher 
than in the rest of England, that the blue or orange 
color of the electioneering flags was the one single notion 
which the lower classes had of the great Whig or the 
great Conservative parties for whom they were led to 
vote. An illiterate artisan on his deatli-bed would say, 
as a plea for the condonation of many sins, ^' At least I 
have been true to my colors." And on one occasion, 
when in a country town, b}^ some accident, the blue and 
orange colors were interchanged, the whole mass of the 
voters followed the color to which they were accustomed, 
although it was attached to the party which represented 
the exactly opposite principles. • We cannot deny that in 
dealing with popular passion and prejudice on this as on 
other matters, it may be necessary to concede far more 
than either correct history or calm reason will justify. 



Chap. VIIL] THEIR CONTRASTS. 181 

But it may be worth while in all these cases to show 
how insignificant and how valueless is the form. Is it 
not our duty, in the first instance, to represent, at least 
to ourselves and the more educated, the real state of the 
case — to be fully persuaded that these things are of 
themselves, as St. Paul says, absolutely " nothing " — even 
if immediately afterwards, in condescension to weak 
brethren, we are inclined, as he was, to go a long way 
either in avoiding or in adopting them ? Even in that 
very instance which was just now quoted of the Red 
Flag, on an occasion when its adoption might have led 
to the most terrible results both in France and in Europe, 
when on February 25, 1848, a raging mob, surging 
round the steps of the H5tel de Ville of Paris, demanded 
that this crimson banner should be adopted instead of 
the tricolor, that calamit}^, as it certainly would have 
been, was averted, even with that savage multitude, by 
the eloquent appeal of one man to the indisputable origin 
of its first appearance in the history of France. " The 
Tricolor," said Lamartine, " has made the tour of the 
world with our glories and our victories ; but the Red 
Flag has only made the tour of the Champ de Mars, 
trailed in mire and defiled with blood." He alluded, of 
course, to the fact that the Red Flag was originally the 
badge of martial law, and yet more to the first distinct 
occasion of its adoption, on that dark day — among the 
most disgraceful in the annals of the first French Revo- 
lution — which witnessed the execution of one of the 
noblest of Frenchmen under the insults of a furious pop- 
ulace who waved the red flag before him, dragged it 
through the mud, and drew blood with it from his ven- 
erable face. By that calm historical allusion, though fully 
appreciated perhaps only by a few, Lamartine was able 
to disperse pacifically and reasonably a movement which, 
had he fired at the flag with shot and shell as a symbol of 



182 ECCLESIASTICAL DRESSES. [Chap. YIIL 

anarchy, would probably have deluged Paris with blood. 
If, in like manner, the Comte de Charabord could be 
convinced that the white flag represented in its origin, 
not legitimate monarchy, but the white plume of a Hu- 
guenot chief, he might be persuaded to abandon that 
which, as it would seem, no force of arms will ever 
enable him to relinquish, or the country to adopt. 

In all such cases it is our duty, whether as opponents 
or upholders of these forms, to see things as they really 
are, and not to adopt the passionate and ill-informed ex- 
pressions of those whom we ought to guide, and whose 
guidance we ought to be the last to accept. 

3. Thirdly, it may be remarked that in point of fact it 

is not so much any theory concerning these dresses which 

arouses popular indignation, as the circumstance 

Their noTel i i c 

and foreign that they are unusual, startling, and theretore 
offensive ; and also that they are regarded as 
borrowed from the Roman Catholic Church, and there- 
fore viewed with suspicion, not unnaturally, as the out- 
ward signs and tokens of a system which is believed to 
have been the cause of infinite mischief and misery to 
England three hundred years ago, and to Spain, Italy, 
and France at this moment. And this ground of indig- 
nation, apart from any sacerdotal or sacrificial associa- 
tions, is further borne out by the fact that it is actually 
the ground on which these particular vestments are 
adopted by those who wear them. We are not aware 
that in any instance there has been an attempt on the 
part of our English clerg}^ either to wear what they may 
imagine to have been actually worn in the second and 
third centuries, or to wear what is worn in the Greek, 
the Coptic, or the Armenian Church, or even in the time 
of Edward VI. in England. They are imported, as we 
may see by newspaper advertisements, simply from the 
magazines of France and of Belgium, according to the 



Chap. VIIL] THEIR NOVELTY. 183 

last fashions of Brussels or Paris. They represent, there- 
fore, in their actual adoption, merely the usages of these 
foreign modern Churches, and nothing else. Indeed, we 
may say they are copied with almost Chinese exactness 
of imitation, even to their rents and patches. An in- 
stance my be selected which does not belong at present 
to the disputed category, but which therefore will the 
better illustrate the question, — the modern practice of 
cutting off the surplice at the knees. This, assuredly not 
copied from either Jewish or primitive ceremonial, is 
the exact copy of the surplice of the modern Roman 
Church, but of that garment under peculiar conditions. 
It has been said, on good authority, that originally the 
Roman surplice reached to the feet, but that the lower 
part was of lace ; then that the lace, being too expen- 
sive, was cut away, and so left the surplice in that state, 
of which this economical curtailment has been adopted 
as the model of English usage. 

We do not say that this peculiarity is calculated to 
render them less odious to popular feeling ; but it at 
once clears away a mass of useless declamation, either 
for or against, which we find in speeches, petitions, and 
pamphlets. And it is more important to notice this, be- 
cause the dislike to untimely innovations or foreign cos- 
tumes rests on a larger basis than concerns the particular 
clothes which have been introduced during the last ten 
years. A surplice adopted suddenly where a gown has 
hitherto been worn has provoked an opposition quite as 
violent, and has been defended with a tenacity quite as 
exaggerated, as has been shown with regard to the more 
fanciful vestments of latter days. The cope, which, ac- 
cording to some of the fine-drawn distinctions, both of 
enemies and of friends, is not supposed to be " sacrifi- 
cial," would produce quite as much consternation in a 
rustic parish, or even in a country cathedral, as the 



184 ECCLESIASTICAL DRESSES. [Chap. YIIL 

chasuble, which is alleged to be " sacrificial." It is the 
foreign, unusual, defiant, and, if so be, illegal introduc- 
tion of these things which constitutes their offence. 

V. Taking these practical principles as our guide, we 
proceed to ask what, under our actual circumstances, is 
the best course to pursue with regard to these usages. 

1. First, it would seem to be the duty of every one who 
is a voice and not merely an echo to proclaim their ab- 
importance solutc indifference and triviality, when com- 
£g™tSrin- pa^^ed with matters of serious religion. It was 
difference, g^'^ -^^ ^ great diviuc, souie thirty years ago, 
that it was the peculiar blot of factions or parties in the 
Church of England to have fought, as for matters of im- 
portance, for this or that particular kind of dress. The 
remark is true. Thrice over has the English Church 
been distracted by a vestiarian controversy — first, at 
the Reformation, when Bishop Hooper refused to wear a 
square cap because God had made heads round ; sec- 
ondly, in the controversy between Laud and the Puri- 
tans ; and, thirdly, in our own time, beginning with 
the Exeter riots of 1840, and continuing even now. 
No such controversy has ever distracted either the 
Church of Rome, or the Church of Luther, or the 
Church of Calvin. It is high time to see whether we 
could not now, once and forever, dispel the idea that the 
Kingdom of God, or " the workshop of Satan," consists 
in the color of a coat, or the shape of a cloak, or the use 
of a handkerchief. Viewed merely in a doctrinal point 
of view, no more deadly blow could be struck at the 
ceremonial, and what may be called the Etruscan theory 
of religion, than to fill the atmosphere with the sense 
of the entire insignificance of dresses or postures. To 
speak of them as of no significance is the true transla- 
tion of the great maxim of the Apostle, — " Circumcision 
availeth nothing, nor uncircumcision.^' 



i 



Chap. VIIL] THE ORNAMENTS' RUBRIC. 185 

2. Secondly, if this absolute adiaphorism could be 
made to take possession of the popular mind, our course 
would be very much cleared. We might then ^j^^ q^^^_ 
view more calmly the legal aspect of the ques- ^J^*^' ^^' 
tion, as depending on the validity and the mean- 
ing of the Ornaments' Rubric. This ingenious obscurity 
is a singular example, either of the disingenuousness or 
of the negligence with which the Prayer Book was re- 
constructed during the passionate period of the Resto- 
ration. 

But supposing that it should be decided once and 
again that the rubric forbids the use of these vestments, 
the fact of their historical insignificance would be a con- 
solation to those who, willing to obey the law, would 
thus be constrained to give up what the usage of some 
years has no doubt endeared to them. They would feel 
then that they were not surrendering any principle, but 
merely a foreign custom, which having been introduced, 
let us hope, with the innocent motive of beautifying pub- 
lic worship, they abandoned as good citizens and good 
Churchmen, when the law declared against it ; and that in 
so doing they were parting with a practice which had no 
other intrinsic value than what belongs to an antiquarian 
reminiscence of that early age of the Church when there 
was no distinction between clergy and laity, between 
common and ecclesiastical life, and that the only histor- 
ical association legitimately connected with it was the 
most anti-sacerdotal — the most Protestant — that Chris- 
tian antiquity has handed down to us. 

And on the other hand, if it should be decided that 
the rubric requires these vestments to be worn, then 
again, to those who have hitherto objected to them, it 
would be no less a consolation to know that such a re- 
quirement did not enforce the use of anything which 
symbolized a doctrine either of the Real Presence or of 



186 ECCLESIASTICAL DRESSES. [Chap. VIII. 



SO 



the priesthood, but was simply the last English, or, if 
be, the last Parisian development of the shirts and coats 
and rugs of the peasants and gentry of the third cen- 
tury. And in this contingency, two considerations oc- 
cur which might mitigate what to some persons would 
appear to be a serious grievance. The first is that if 
these clothes should be declared legal, the probability is 
that the interest attaching to them would almost entirely 
cease. Half of the excitement they now produce, both 
in those who defend and those who attack them, is from 
the belief that they are, more or less, contrary to the 
law. Whatever the Supreme Court of Appeal takes 
under its patronage loses, in the eyes of many zealous 
clerg}^, its special ecclesiastical value. When, for ex- 
ample, the Credence Table was legalized and shown to 
be not an appendage to an altar, but a sideboard on 
which the dishes were placed, in order to be tasted be- 
fore being set on the table, with the view of seeing 
whether they contained poison, that part of the church 
furniture ceased to be a bone of contention. Even the 
cope has comparatively lost its interest since it was com- 
manded by the Privy Council ; just as it may be fairly 
doubted whether the significance of the eastward position 
can stand the shock given when it is found that one of 
the solitary witnesses to it in the past generation was 
Bishop Maltby, the Whig of Whigs, the Protestant of 
Protestants, the recipient of the famous Durham letter. 
There is a story of a distinguished prelate now deceased 
which may serve to illustrate the probable action of the 
law. A clergyman, who had contended in his village 
church for various points of ceremonial, at last ventured 
to ask, with fear and trembling, whether " his lordship 
could allow the choristers to appear in surplices." " By 
all means," said the bishop, " let them appear in sur- 
plices — it will help to degrade that vestment." What 



Chap. VIIL] THE ORNAMENTS' RUBRIC. 187 

he meant, of course, was that the surplice would then 
lose its peculiar sacerdotal significance ; and certainly the 
legalizing of any dress by the Protestant Legislature of 
England would immediately place such dress "on a foot- 
ing and in a light which would admit of no misconcep- 
tion as to what was intended or not intended by it. 

And, if the law should be thus pronounced, it would 
then in all probability become a matter of practical con- 
sideration whether an ancient and difficult rubric, thus 
suddenly revived, could be expected to be universally 
put in force throughout the country, and would thus 
open the door to the intervention of that principle which 
is so well laid down in Canon Robertson's book, " How 
shall we Conform to the Liturgy ? " and in the succession 
of admirable articles in the " Quarterly Review " on the 
same subject — namely, that, in the matter of these 
ancient rubrical observances, common sense and charity 
and the discretion of the Ordinary must come in to 
modify and accommodate rigid rules which otherwise 
would produce a dead-lock in every office of the Church. 

In point of fact, the cope, even since the recent de- 
cision in its favor, has, except in a few special cases, been 
hardly worn at all. There has not been throughout the 
whole Church more than three or four instances of def- 
erence to this reanimated ghost. And with regard to a 
much larger assortment of clerical vestments, but resting 
on the same authority as the cope, — namely, the Canons 
of 1604, — it may be safely asserted that not one clergy- 
man in ten thousand ever wears or thinks of wearing any 
of them. Those canons command every clergyman, in 
walking or travelling, to appear in " a gown with a stand- 
ing collar," or in "a tippet of silk or sarcenet," and on 
no account to wear a cloak with long sleeves, and es- 
pecially " not to wear light-colored stockings." This 74th 
Canon is everywhere disregarded, and though it contains 



188 ECCLESIASTICAL DRESSES. [Chap. YIIL 

the sensible remark that " its meaning is not to attribute 
any holiness or special worthiness to the said garments " 
(the very principle for which we have been contending), 
" but for decency, gravity, a,nd order ; " yet it is not less 
precise in its enactments than the 58th and 24th Canons, 
and must stand or fall with them. It may be quoted on 
this occasion to show how completely and irrevocably cus- 
tom has been allowed to override a rule, which is not, in- 
deed, properly speaking, the law of the Church (being 
only a canon and not a statute), but by which, neverthe- 
less, it has been often attempted in these matters to pro- 
vide that the laws of the Church shall be regulated. 

And this, perhaps, is the place for considering the 
question whether, supposing that the existing law fail 
useiessness either from obscurity or obsoleteness to control 
of rubrics, q^^. present usage, it is desirable to pass a new 
legislative enactment which shall lay down precisely 
what clothes are or are not to be worn by the clergy, 
inside or outside their official ministrations. The same 
principle of the intrinsic indifference of these things 
which we have laid down will help us here to a right solu- 
tion. If we can once resolve that the question of clerical, 
as of all dress, is simply a matter of custom and fashion, 
or, as the T4th Canon says, of " decency, gravity, and 
order," then we may safely venture to say that to enu- 
merate any catalogue or wardrobe of such clothes either 
in an Act of Parliament, or even in a canon, would be 
entirely unworthy of the dignity of an Act of the Leg- 
islature or even of the Convocations. It would be un- 
worthy, and (unless it entered into details which would 
be absolutely ridiculous) it would soon be utterly use- 
less. For who can now say exactly what it is which 
constitutes a legal cope or chasuble, or the legal length 
of a surplice, or " guards, and welts, and cuts," or " a 
coif, or wrought night-cap ? " And the total failure of 



Chap. VIIL] USELESSNESS OF RUBKICS. 189 

the canon jast cited proves how inevitably such rules 
fall into hopeless desuetude after a few years. Nor 
would such enumeration be necessary. One advantage 
of the deep obscurity of the Ornaments' Rubric has been 
that it has shown us how possible it is for a Church (ex- 
cept in occasional excitements) to exist without any rule 
at all on the subject. Not a single garment is named by 
name in that rubric, nor in any part of the Prayer Book 
from beginning to end ; ^ and yet on the whole a comely 
and decent order has been observed in the English 
Church, only with such change as the silent lapse of time 
necessarily brings with it. And it should be observed 
that in the Irish Church before its recent calamities, in 
the American Episcopal Church, and in the Established 
Church of Scotland, not even the shadow of the Orna- 
ments' Rubric exists, nor anything analogous to it. Cus- 
tom, and custom alone, has provided the white gown, the 
black gown, the blue gown, as the case may be. To 
this easy yoke, and to this safe guide of custom and 
common sense, we also might safely commit ourselves. 

3. This leads us to another obvious conclusion. If 
there be no intrinsic value in these vestments, then, 
whether the law forbids them or enforces them, 

Folly of in- 

the same duty is incumbent on all those who troducmg 

*^ , , , „ Testments. 

regard the substance of rehgion above its forms, 
namely, that on no account should these garbs, whether 
legal or illegal, be introduced into churches or parishes 
where they give offence to the parish or the congrega- 
tion. The more any clergyman can appreciate the ab- 
solute indifference of such things in themselves, the more 
will he feel himself compelled to withdraw them the 
moment he finds that they produce the opposite effect 

1 The only exception is not in the Prayer Book itself, but in the single office 
of the Consecration of a Bishop, and in that there is no mention of lawn sleeves 
or chimere, but only of the " rochet." 



190 ECCLESIASTICAL DRESSES. [Chap. YIII. 

to that which he Id tended them to have. On the ne- 
cessity of such a restriction, it is a satisfaction to believe 
that many even of those whose opinions rather incline 
them to these peculiar usages, would more or less concur. 
Quarrels produced in parishes by such trivial causes 
ought to be stifled instantly and at once. The game, 
however delightful, of maintaining these vestments, is 
not worth the burning the candle of discord even for a 
single moment in a single parish. And, on the other 
hand, as regards those congregations, where no offence is 
given, it seems to be " straining at a gnat and swallowing 
a camel," whilst we freely allow (and no one is disposed 
to curtail the legal liberty) the preaching and practising 
of the most extravagant — the most uncharitable — the 
most senseless doctrines, on whatever side, to stumble at 
permitting a few congregations here and there to indulge 
themselves in the pleasure of a few colors and a few 
shapes to which we know with absolute certainty that 
no religious significance is intrinsically attached ; and of 
which any significance, that may be imagined to be at- 
tached to them by those who use them, can be equally 
or better expressed by garments of quite another make, 
and by ceremonies of quite another kind. 

If we are reall}^ desirous of resisting the malady of 
reactionary hierarchical sentiment, let us grapple not 
with these superficial and ambiguous symptoms, but with 
the disease itself. The refusal to acknowledge State 
interference with Church affairs, whether on the part of 
Koman Ultramontanes, Scottish Free Churchmen, or 
English Liberationists ; the exciting speeches of so-called 
Liberal candidates to miscalled Liberal constituents on 
behalf of what they choose to call spiritual indepen- 
dence ; the attempts from time to time by legal prosecu- 
tion, or angry declamation, to stifle free critical inquiry 
in the Church of England ; the refusal to acknowledge 



Chap. VIII.] ATTENTION TO IMPORTANT MATTERS. 191 

the pastoral character of our Wesleyan or Nonconforin- 
ing brethren ; the tendency to encourage a material 
rather than a moral and spiritual view of Christian ordi- 
nances; the reading of the services of the Church inaud- 
ibly and unintelligibly, in imitation of a Church which 
employs a dead language, — all these endeavors, con- 
ducted with however conscientious a desire to do good, 
and however justified by certain elements in the Church 
of England, or in human nature — are more hostile to 
the true spirit of the Reformation than any evanescent 
fashions of clerical costume, which perish with the using. 
Even to the most extreme Puritan and to the most ex- 
treme Calvinist, we venture to quote, in justification of 
an exceptional toleration in these trivial matters, the 
saying of the great John Calvin himself, " They are tol- 
erabiles ineptice.^^ 

4. Finally, it would be a clear gain to the interests of 
practical, moral, and spiritual religion, if by granting 
all feasible toleration to these innocent archa- Attention to 
isms in a few eccentric places, the majority of ^aiYmport- 
Churchmen could be left free to pursue the ^''^^' 
improvements which the Church and nation so urgently 
need, and which have hitherto been defeated by the dis- 
proportionate and inordinate attention devoted both by- 
friends and enemies to this insignificant point. What 
is really wanted, both for the good of the Church and 
as the best corrective to the superstitious and materializ- 
ing tendency which many of us deplore, is not an at- 
tempt to restrain particular external usages, except, as 
before remarked, when they give offence to the parish- 
ioners ; but, regardless of any threats, to aim at such 
improvements as would be desirable, even if there were 
not a single Ritualist in existence ; to develop the Prot- 
estant elements of the Chui'ch, which are stunted and 
dwarfed from the fear of offending those who, whilst 



192 ECCLESIASTICAL DKESSES. [Chap. VIIL 

they demand for themselves a liberty which liberal 
Churchmen have always endeavored to gain for them, 
have hitherto too often refused to concede the slightest 
liberty to others. 

The real evils of this tendency, whether in the Eng- 
lish or in the Roman Catholic Church, which threatens 
to swallow up the larger, freer, more reasonable spirit 
which existed in both Churches fifty years ago, are ob- 
vious. The encouragement of a morbid dependence on 
the priesthood ; a vehement antagonism to the law ; ex- 
cessive value attached to the technical forms of theology 
and ritual ; a revival of a scholastic phraseology which 
has lost its meaning ; a passion for bitter controversy 
and for exaggeration of differences, — all these evils are 
for the most part beyond the reach of legal or ecclesi- 
astical tribunals, and can only be met, as they can be 
fully met, first by fearless and dispassionate argument, 
but secondly and chiefly by the encouragement of a 
healthier tone in the public mind and clerical opinion, 
as at once a corrective and a counterpoise. What is 
needed is not to exterminate, but to act independently of, 
the party which have so often obstructed improvement 
by mere clamor and menace. The controversy concern- 
ing the lesser points of ceremonial has too much diverted 
the public attention from the substance to the accidents. 
The adherents of these vestments count amongst their 
ranks the wise and the foolish, the serious and the friv- 
olous. Let them, in their own special localities, when 
they do not impose their own fancies upon unwilling 
listeners or spectators, by these colors and forms, do their 
best and their worst. Let them add, if so be, the pea- 
cocks' feathers which the Pope borrowed from the Kings 
of Persia, or the scarlet shoes which he took from the 
Roman Emperors. Let them freely have, if the law 
allows it, the liberty of facing to any point of the com- 



CiiAP. VIIL] ATTENTION TO IMPORTANT MATTERS. 193 

pass they desire — with Mussulmans to the east, with 
the Pope to the west, with Hindoos to the north, or 
with old-fashioned Anglicans to the south. This is no 
more than is deserved by the zeal of some ; it is no more 
than may be safely conceded to the scruples of all who 
can be indulged without vexing the consciences of others. 
But then let those also who take another view of the 
main attractions of religion be permitted to enjoy the 
liberty which, till thirty years ago, was freely permitted. 
Let the rules which, if rendered inflexible, cripple the 
energies of the Church and mar its usefulness be relaxed 
by some machinery such as was in use in former times, 
before the modern creation of the almost insuperable 
obstructions of the majorities of the four Houses of Con- 
vocation. Let each Bishop or Ordinary have the legal 
power, subject to any checks which Parliament will im- 
pose, of sanctioning what is almost universally allowed 
to pass unchallenged. Let us endeavor to abate those 
prolongations and repetitions which have made our ser- 
vices, contrary to the intention of their framers, a by- 
word at home and abroad. Let us endeavor to secure 
that there shall be the option of omitting the ques- 
tionable though interesting document whose most char- 
acteristic passages one of the two Convocations has vir- 
tually abjured. Let us permit, openly or tacitly, the 
modifications in the rubrics of the Baptismal, the Mar- 
riage, the Commination, and the Ordination Services, 
which ought to be an offence to none, and would be an 
immense relief to many. Let us seek the means of ena- 
bling the congregations of the National Church to hear, 
not merely, as at present, the lectures, but the sermons 
of preachers second to none in our own Church, though 
at present not of it. Let us be firmly persuaded that 
error is most easily eradicated by establishing truth, and 
darkness most permanently displaced by diffusing light ; 

13 



194 ECCLESIASTICAL DRESSES. [Chap. YIH. 

and then whilst the best parts of the High Church party- 
will be preserved to the Church by their own intrinsic 
excellence, the worst parts will be put down, not by the 
irritating and often futile process of repression, but by 
the pacific and far more effectual process of enforcing the 
opposite truths, of creating in the Church a wholesome 
atmosphere of manly, generous feeling, in which all that 
is temporary, acrid, and trivial will fade away, and all 
that is eternal, reasonable, and majestic will flourish and 
abound. 



i 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE BASILICA. 

What was the original idea which the Christians of 
the first centuries conceived of a place of worship ? 
What was the model which they chose for themselves 
when, on emerging from the Catacombs, they looked 
round upon the existing edifices of the civilized world ? 

For nearly two hundred years, set places of worship 
had no existence at all. In the third century, notices of 
them became more frequent, but still in such ambiguous 
terms that it is difiicult to ascertain how far the build- 
ing or how far the congregation is the prominent idea 
in the writer's mind; and it is not, therefore, till the 
fourth century, when they became so general as to ac- 
quire a fixed form and name, that our inquiry properly 
begins. 

Of the public edifices of the heathen world, there were 
three which lent themselves to the Christian use. One 
was the circular tomb. This was seen in the various 
forms of memorial churches which from the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre spread throughout the Empire. But this 
was exceptional. Another was the Temple. Though 
occasionally adopted by the Eastern Emperors,^ and in 
some few instances, as the Pantheon, at Rome itself, it 
was never incorporated into the institutions of Western 
Christendom. It was not only that all its associations, 
both of name and place, jarred with the most cherished 

1 Bingham, viii. 2, 4. The Egyptian temples were many of them so used; 
as at Athens the Parthenon and the Temple of Theseus. 



196 THE BASILICA. [Chap. IX. 

notions of Christian purity and holiness, but also that 
the very construction of the edifice was wholly incompat- 
ible with the new idea of worship, which Christianity 
had brought into the world. The Temple of Isis at 
Pompeii (to take the most complete specimen now ex- 
tant of a heathen temple at the time of the Christian 
era) at once exhibits the impossibility of amalgamating 
elements so heterogeneous. It was exactly in accordance 
with the genius of heathenism, that the priest should 
minister in the presence of the God, withdrawn from 
view in the little cell or temple that rose in the centre of 
the consecrated area; but how should the president of 
the Christian assembly be concealed from the vast con- 
course in whose name he acted, and who, as with the 
voice of many waters, were to reply " Amen " to his giv- 
ing of thanks ? It was most congenial to the feeling of 
Pagan worshippers that they should drop in, one by one, 
or in separate groups, to present their individual prayers 
or offcnugs to their chosen divinity ; but how was a 
Christian congregation, which, by its very name of eccle- 
sia, recalled the image of those tumultuous crowds which 
had thronged the Pnyx or Forum in the days of the 
Athenian or Roman Commonwealth, to be brought 
within the narrow limits of the actual edifice which was 
supposed to be the dwelling of the God? Even the 
Temple of Jerusalem itself, pure as it was from the rec- 
ollections which invested the shrines of the heathen dei- 
ties, yet from its darkness, its narrowness, and the inac- 
cessibility of its innermost cell, was obviously inadequate 
to become the visible home of a religion to which the 
barriers of Judaism were hardly less uncongenial than 
those of Paganism itself. A temple, whether heathen 
or Jewish, could never be the model of a purely Christian 
edifice. The very name itself had now, in Christian 
phraseology, passed into a higher sphere ; and however 



Chap. IX.] ITS FORM. 197 

much long use may have habituated us to the application 
of the word to material buildings, we can well under- 
stand how instinctively an earlier age would shrink from 
any lower meaning than the moral and spiritual sense 
attached to it in those Apostolical Writings which had 
taught the world that the true temple of God was in the 
hearts and consciences of men. And therefore, in the 
words of Bingham, " for the first three ages the name is 
scarce ever " (he might have said never) *' applied to 
Christian places of worship ; " and though instances of 
it are to be found in the rhetorical language of the fourth, 
yet it never obtained a hold on the ordinary language of 
Christendom. The use of the word in Roman Catholic 
countries for Protestant churches is probably dictated by 
the desire to represent the Protestant service as heathen. 
What, then, was the ancient heathen structure, whose 
title has thus acquired a celebrity so far beyond its origi- 
nal intention ? It is the especial offsprinsj and 

1 1 p TTT . -T • ^ 1 • • The Basilica. 

symbol or Western civilization ; — Cxreek m its 
origin, Roman in its progress. Christian in its ultimate 
development, the word is coextensive with the range of 
the European family. In the earliest form 

. " p . . Its form. 

under which we can catch any trace oi it, it 
stands in the dim antiquity of the Homeric age — at the 
point where the first beginnings of Grecian civilization 
melt away into the more primitive forms of Oriental so- 
ciety. It is the gateway of the Royal Palace, in which 
the ancient Kings, Agamemnon at Mycenas, David at 
Jerusalem, Pharaoh at Thebes or Memphis, sat to hear 
and to judge the complaints of their people; and of which 
the trace ^ was preserved at Athens in the "King's Por- 
tico" under the Pnyx, where the Archon King per- 

1 It is perhaps doubtful how far the /orm of the word "Basilica," though of 
course itself purely Greek, was ever used with this acceptation iu Greece itself. 
2Toa /?ao-tAe'ws is the designation of the Athenian portico, and oticos or vabs paa-i- 
Ae'eos is Eusebius' expression for the Christian Basilica. 



198 THE BASILICA. [Chap. IX. 

formed the last judicial functions of the last shadow of 
the old Athenian royalty. But it was amongst the Ro- 
mans that it first assumed that precise form and meaning 
which have given it so lasting an importance. Judging 
from the great prominence of the Basilicas as public 
buildings, and from the more extended application of 
them in -the Imperial times to purposes of general busi- 
ness, the nearest parallel to them in modern cities would 
doubtless be found in the Town-hall or Exchange. 
What, in fact, the rock-hewn semicircle of the Pnyx was 
at Athens — what the open platform of the Forum had 
been in the earlier days of Rome itself ^ — that, in the 
later times of the Commonwealth, was the Basilica — 
the general place of popular resort and official transac- 
tions ; but, in accordance with the increased refinement 
of a more civiUzed age, protected from the midday sun 
and the occasional storm by walls and roof. There was 
a long hall divided by two rows of columns into a cen- 
tral avenue, with two side aisles, in one of which the 
male, in the other the female appellants to justice waited 
their turn. The middle aisle was occupied by the chance 
crowd that assembled to hear the proceedings, or for pur- 
poses of merchandise. A transverse avenue which crossed 
the others in the centre, if used at all, was occupied by 
the advocates and others engaged in the public business. 
The whole building was closed by a long semicircular re- 
cess, in the centre of which sat the prsetor or supreme 
judge, seen high above the heads of all on the elevated^ 

1 The Tynwald in the Isle of Man is an exact likeness still existing of these 
early assemblies in the open air. 

2 The "judgment-hall" or praetorium of the Roman magistrates in the prov- 
jaces had no further resemblance to the Basilica than in the coincidence of name 
which must have arisen from their frequent formation out of the palaces of the 
former kings of the conquered nations. But so necessary was the elevation of 
the judge's seat considered to the final delivery of the sentence, that, as has been 
made familiar to us in one memorable instance (John xix. 13), the absence of 
the usual ti-ibunal was supplied by a tesselated pavement, which the magistrate 
carried with him, and on which his chair or throne was placed before he could 
pronounce sentence. 



Chap. IX.] ITS ADAPTATION. 199 

" tribunal," wliicli was deemed the indispensable symbol 
of the Roman judgment-seat. 

This was the form of the Basilica, as it met the view 
of the first Christians. Few words are needed to account 
for its adaptation to the use of a Christian ^^ , 

■•■ _ ^ _ Its adapta- 

church. Somethinpf, no doubt, is to be ascribed, tiontochris- 

^ tian worship. 

as Dean Milraan well remarks, to the fact,^ that 
" as these buildings were numerous, and attached to any 
imperial residence, they might be bestowed at once on 
the Christians without either interfering with the course 
of justice, or bringing the religious feelings of the hostile 
parties into collision." Still, the instances of actual 
transformation are exceedingly rare — in most cases it 
must have been impossible, from the erection of the early- 
Christian churches on the graves, real or supposed, of 
martyrs and apostles, which, according to the almost uni- 
versal practice of the ancient world, were necessarily 
without the walls of the city, as the halls of justice, 
from their connection with every-day life, were necessa- 
rily within. It is on more general grounds that we may 
trace something in the type itself of the Basilica, at least 
not uncongenial to the early Christian views of worship, 
independent of any causes of mere accidental conven- 
ience. What this was has been anticipated in what has 
been said of the rejection of the temple. There was now 
a ''church," a "congregation," an "assembly," which 
could no longer be hemmed within the narrow precincts, 
or detained in the outer courts of the inclosure — where 
could they be so naturally placed as in the long aisles 
which had received the concourse of the Roman popu- 
lace, and which now became the " nave "of the Christian 
Cathedrals ? Whatever distinctions existed in the Chris- 
tian society were derived, not as in the Jewish temple, 
from any notions of inherent religious differences between 

1 History of Christianity, iii 343. 



200 THE BASILICA. [Chap. IX. 

different classes of men, but merely, as in the Jewish 
S3"nagogue, from considerations of order and decency ; 
and where could these be found more readily than in the 
separate places still retained by the sexes in the aisles of 
the Basilica ; or the appropriation of the upper end of 
the building to the clergy and singers ? There was a 
law to be proclaimed, and a verdict to be pronounced, by 
the highest officers of the new society ; and what more 
natural, than that the Bishop should take his seat on the 
lofty tribunal of the prsetor,^ and thence rebuke, exhort, 
or command, with an authority not the less convincing, 
because it was moral and not legal ? There was, lastly, 
a bond of communion between all the members of that 
assembly, to which the occupants of the Temple and the 
Basilica had been alike strangers — what more fitting 
than that the empty centre of the ancient judgment-hall, 
where its several avenues and aisles joined in one, should 
now receive a new meaning ; and that there, neither in 
the choir nor nave, but in the meeting point of both, 
should be erected the Altar or Table of that communion 
which was to belong exclusively neither to the clergy nor 
to the people, but to bind both together in indissoluble 
harmony? 2 

1 The Basilica iEmiliana and the Basilica Jiilia were examples in the Eoman 
Forum of this sort of edifice. But there were others where the judicial charac- 
ter was more strongly impressed on the building. Such were the Basilica Ses- 
soriana, now converted into the Chm-ch of Sta. Croce in the Sessorian Palace at 
Eome ; the Basilica Palatina, still to be traced on the ruins of the Palatine, with 
its apse and its oblong hall ; the Basilica attached to the palace at Treves, and 
since converted into a Protestant church bv the late King of Prussia. 

2 The " atrium " and " impluvium " of the more private hall seem to have be- 
come the models of the outer court and "cantharus " or fountain of the Basilica. 
The obvious appropriation of the seats immediately round the altar to the em- 
peror and his attendants, when present, is preserved in the probable derivation 
of "chancellor," from the "cancelli" or "rails," by which that officer sat. In 
the Eastern Church the screen of the Iconostasis, which now divides the nave from 
the choir, has assumed a solid shape to furnish a stand for the increasing multi- 
plication of sacred pictures. But originally it was a curtain, then a light trellis 
work. And in the Western Church it has never intruded, until in the fifteenth 



Chap. IX.] POPULAR CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH. 201 

There are some general reflections which this trans- 
formation suggests. In the first place, it may no doubt 
have been an accident that the first Christian place of 
worship should have been taken from an edifice so ex- 
pressive of the popular life of Greece and Rome, — so 
exact an antithesis to the seclusion of the Jewish and 
Pagan Temple. But, if it was an accident, it is strik- 
ingly in accordance with all that we know of the strength 
of the popular element of the early Church, — not merely 
in its first origin, when even an Apostle did not pronounce 
sentence on an offender, or issue a decree or appoint an 
officer, without the concurrence of the whole so- 

. , , . 1 A '^^® popular 

ciety ; but even m those later times, when Au- character of 

•^. . . ' the Church. 

gustine fled from city to city to escape from the 
elevation which he was destined to receive from the wild 
enthusiasm of an African populace; when a layman, a 
magistrate, an unbaptized catechumen was, on the chance 
acclamation of an excited mob, transformed into Am- 
brose, Archbishop of Milan. It is precisely this true im- 
age of the early Church, the union of essential religious 
equality with a growing distinction of rank and order, 
that the Basilica was to bring before us in a visible and 
tangible shape. It might have been unnatural, if the 
whole constitution, the whole religion of the three first 
centuries was wrapt up in the institution of Bishops, 
Priests, and Deacons ; but it could not have been deemed 
altogether strange, in an age that still caught the echoes 

century, for quite another reason, the screen was introduced to hide the local 
shrine of the saint, as at St. Albans and Westminster Abbey (if so be) from the 
eyes of common worshippers. The altar was a wooden structure, as it still is in 
the Eastern Church. It was gradually changed to stone in the sixth century, 
from the incorporation of a relic of a saint inside, and the wish to consider it as 
a tomb (see Chapter XI.). What was therefore once its universal material has 
since then been absolutely forbidden in the Roman Church. It was also com- 
monly placed in the middle of the apse of the church. The modern practice of 
jts attachment to the eastern wall was absolutely unknown. Its ancient name 
was "the Table," by which it is still always called in the East. (See Chapter 
III.) 



202 THE BASILICA. [Chap. IX. 

of that contest which convulsed the early Christian so- 
ciety, between the last expiring efforts of the popular 
element of the Church and the first germ of the rule of 
the clergy. 

Again, the rise of the first edifice of Christian worship, 
not out of the Jewish Temple, nor even the Jewish Syn- 
The secular ^g^g^^? ^^"^t out of the Roman hall of justice, 
chSSiau i^^y b^ regarded as no inapt illustration of an- 
usages. other fact of early Christian history. We are 

often reminded by the polemics of opposite schools of the 
identity of early Christian customs and institutions with 
those of the older dispensation. Few topics have been 
more popular in modern times, whether in praise or 
blame, than the Judaic character of the worship, ministry, 
and teaching of the three first centuries. But the in- 
disputable share which the Gentile world has had in the 
material buildings of the Christian Church, suggests a 
doubt whether it may not have also contributed some- 
thing to the no less complex structure of its moral fabric. 
The influence of Judaism on the first century was un- 
doubtedly very great. On the one hand, the early sects 
had all more or less something of a Judaizing character ; 
on the other hand, even the Apostles could not have been 
what they were had they not been Jews. But the fall 
of Jerusalem was in truth the fall of the Jewish world ; 
it was a reason for the close of the Apostolic age — a 
death-blow to the influence of the Jewish nationality for 
a long time to come on the future fortunes of the world 
at large. Something, no doubt, both of its form and spirit, 
lingered on, in the institutions of that great society which 
sprung out of its ruins ; but however much the mere 
ceremonial and superficial aspect of the Patristic age 
may bear a Jewish physiognomy, it is to the influences 
at work in the social fabric of the Roman Empire itself, 
that we must seek the true springs of action in the Chris- 



Chap. IX.] SECULAR ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN USAGES 203 

tian Church, — so far as they came from any foreign 
source. It is therefore with something more than a 
mere artistical interest that we find the Bishop seated on 
the chair of the Praetor — the forms of the cathedral 
already wrapt up in the halls of ^milius and of Trajan. 
It is in accordance not only with the more general influ- 
ence to which the Christian society was exposed, from the 
rhetorical subtleties, the magical superstitions, the idol- 
atrous festivals, and the dissolute habits of the heathen 
world at large, but also with the more especial influence 
which the purely political spirit of the Roman State ex- 
ercised over some of their most peculiar institutions — 
with the fact that the very names by which the func- 
tions of their officers are described sprung not from the re- 
ligious, but from the civil vocabulary of the times, and 
are expressions not of spiritual so much as of political 
power. "Ordo" (the origin of our present "orders") 
was the well-known name of the municipal senates of the 
empire; " ordinatio " (the original of our " ordination ") 
was never used by the Romans except for civil appoint- 
ments ; the " tribunes of the people " are the likeness 
which the historian of the '' Decline and Fall " recog- 
nizes in the early Christian Bishops ; the preponderance 
of the Gentile spirit of government and the revival of 
the spirit of the Roman Senate in the counsels of Cyprian 
was the thought which forced itself on the mind of the 
last English historian of Rome. The Church of Rome 
developed thus early the idea of authority and subordi- 
nation. Evils and abuses innumerable no doubt flowed 
from the excess of this influence of the Christian Church, 
but in itself it was a true instinct, which no arguments 
about the contrast of civil and spiritual power were able 
completely to extinguish.^ The free spirit of the Roman 

1 See Kenan's Hibhert Lectures on the Influence of Rome on Christianity 
and the Catholic Church. 



204 THE BASILICA. [Chap. IX. 

citizen felt that it could breathe nowhere so freely as in 
the bosom of the Christian society. The Christian min- 
ister felt that no existing ofhce or title to power was so 
solemn as that of the Roman magistrate ; and it was a 
striking act of homage to the greatness of the Empire 
that by an instinct, however unconscious, the hall of Ro- 
man justice should not have been deemed too secular for 
a place of Christian worship. 

Yet once more, we have seen how the very name of 
Basilica leads our thoughts back to the period of Roman 
The use of grcatucss and Grecian refinement, how naturally 
^^^' the several parts of the heathen and the secular 

edifice adapted themselves to their higher use, how, on 
the one hand (if we take the Christian service, not in 
its worse, but in its better aspect), the den of thieves 
was changed into the house of prayer — the words of 
heavenly love spoken from the inexorable seat of Roman 
judgment — the halls of wrangling converted into the 
abodes of worship ; — how, on the other hand, the idea 
of the public and social life which the Basilica has 
brought with it from Greece, the idea of an irresistible 
law and universal dominion which had been impressed 
upon it by the genius of Rome, first found their complete 
development under the shadow of that faith which was 
to preserve them both to the new world of Europe. It 
is possible to trace, in this transfiguration of the ancient 
images of Gentile power and civilization, a sign, however 
faint, of the true spirit of that faith which here found an 
outward expression. Had unrestrained scope been given 
to the tendency which strove to assimilate all Christian 
worship to the religious ceremonial of Judaism or Pagan- 
ism, it might have perpetuated itself by adopting in all 
cases, as it certainly did in some, the type, if not of the 
Roman, at least of the Jewish temple. Had the stern 
indifference to all forms of art prevailed everywhere, and 



Chap. IX.] THE USE OF ART. 205 

at all times, during the first, three centuries, as it did 
during the ages of persecution and in the deserts of the 
Thebaid, it would probabl}^ have swept away outward 
localities and forms of worship altogether. 

A higher spirit, undoubtedly, than either of these ten- 
dencies represent, there has always Been in the Christian 
Church, whether latent or expressed ; — a spirit which 
would make religion to consist not in the identification of 
things with itself nor yet in a complete repudiation of 
them — but in its comprehension and appropriation of 
them to its own uses ; — which would look upon the world 
neither as too profane, nor too insignificant, for the re- 
gard of Christians, but rather as the very sphere in which 
Christianity is to live and to triumph. To what extent 
such a spirit may have coexisted with all the counteract- 
ing elements which it must have met in the age of Con- 
stantine, we do not pretend to say : but if the view above 
given be correct, it is precisely such a spirit as this which 
is represented to us in outward form by the origin of the 
Christian Basilica. It is precisely such a monument as 
best befitted the first public recognition of a religion 
whose especial claim it was that it embraced not one na- 
tion only, nor one element of human nature only, but all 
the nations and all the various elements of the whole 
world. The Gothic Cathedral may have had its origin 
quite independently of its precursors in Italy, and may 
have ^been a truer exponent of the whole range of Chris- 
tian feeling ; but neither it, nor any other form of Archi- 
tecture could have won its way into the Christian world, 
unless the rise of the Basilica had first vindicated the ap- 
plication of Gentile art, whether Roman or Teutonic, to 
sacred purposes. The selection of the Halls of Justice 
may have been occasioned by merely temporary and ac- 
cidental causes ; but the mere fact of the selection of such 
sites or such models, unhallowed by ancient tradition, or 



206 THE BASILICA. [Chap. EX. 

primeval awe, was in itself a new phenomenon — was in 
itself the sign that a Religion was come into the world, 
confident of its own intrinsic power of consecrating what- 
ever it touched, independently of any outward or exter- 
nal relation whatever. 

A similar tendency may be perceived in the subsequent 
adaptation of the successive styles of mediaeval and clas- 
sical structures of Christian and Protestant worship. The 
gathering of large masses in the nave or the transepts of 
cathedrals, of which only a small portion had been, prop- 
erly speaking, devoted to religious uses, is an instance of 
these edifices lending themselves to purposes for which 
they were not originally intended. But of all such ex- 
amples, the Basilica is the earliest and the most striking. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE CLERGY. 

It is proposed to state briefly the early constitution of 
the Christian clergy.^ 

I. It is certain that the ofiBcers of the Apostolical, or 
of any subsequent, Church were not part of the original 
institution of the Founder of our religion ; that of Bishop, 
Presbyter, and Deacon, of Metropolitan, Patriarch, and 
Pope, there is not the shadow of a trace in the four Gos- 
pels. It is certain that they arose gradually out of the 
preexisting institutions either of the Jewish Synagogue, 
or of the Roman Empire, or of the Greek municipalities, 
or under the pressure of local emergencies. It is certain 
that throughout the first century, and for the first years 
of the second, that is, through the later chapters of the 
Acts, the Apostolical Epistles, and the writings of Clem- 
ent and Hermas, Bishop and Presbyter were convertible 
terms, and that the body of men so called were the rulers 
— so far as any permanent rulers existed — of the early 
Church. It is certain that as the necessities of the time 
demanded, first at Jerusalem, then in Asia Minor, the 
elevation of one Presbyter above the rest by the almost 

1 The proofs of what is here stated have been given before in the essay "On 
the Apostolical Office," in Sermons and Essays on the Apostolical Age, and are 
therefore not repeated here. And it is the less necessarv, because they have 
been in later times elaborated at great length and with the most convincing ar- 
guments by Bishop Lightfoot in his "Essay on the Christian Ministry" ap- 
pended to his Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians, and by the Rov. 
Edwin Hatch in his articles on "Bishop" and "Presbyter" in the Dictionary 
of Christian Antiquities, as well as in his more recent Bampton Lectures. These 
may be consulted for any further detail. 



208 THE CLERGY. [Chap. X. 

universal law, which, even in republics engenders a mon- 
archical element, the word " Bishop " gradually changed 
its meaning, and by the middle of the second century 
became restricted to the chief Presbyter of the locality. 
It is certain that in no instance were the Apostles called 
"Bishops" in any other sense than they were equally 
called " Presbyters " and " Deacons." It is certain that 
in no instance before the beginning of the third century 
the title or function of the Pagan or Jewish Priesthood 
is applied to the Christian pastors. From these facts re- 
sult general conclusions of general interest. 

1. It is important to observe how with the recognition 
of this gradual growth and change of the early names 

and offices of the Christian ministry, the lonaj 

Identity of -r» i . • 

Bishop and and uerce controversy between rresbyterianism 

Presbyter. i -r-i • i • i • t c i • 

and Episcopacy, which continued from the six- 
teenth to the first part of the nineteenth century, has en- 
tirely lost its significance. It is as sure that nothing like 
modern Episcopacy existed before the close of the first 
century as it* is that nothing like modern Presbyterian- 
ism existed after the beginning of the second. That 
which was once the Gordian knot of theologians has at 
least in this instance been untied, not by the sword of 
persecution, but by the patient unravelment of scholar- 
ship. No existing church can find any pattern or plat- 
form of its government in those early times. Churches, 
like States, have not to go back to a state of barbarism 
to justify their constitution. It has been the misfortune 
of Churches, that, unlike States, there has been on all 
sides equally a disposition either to assume the existence 
in early days of all the later principles of civilization, or 
else to imagine a primitive state of things which never 
existed at all. 

2. These formations or transformations of the Chris- 
tian ministry were drawn from the contemporary usages 



Chap. X.] THE ORDERS. 209 

of society. The Deacons were the most' original of the 
institutions, being invented, as it were, for the origin of the 
special emergency in the Church of Jerusalem. O'^*!^^^^- 
But the Presbyters were the " sheikhs," the elders — 
those who by seniority had reached the first rank — in 
the Jewish Synagogue. The Bishops were the same, 
viewed under another aspect — the " inspectors," the 
" auditors," of the Grecian churches.^ These words 
bear testimony to the fact (as significant of the truly 
spiritual character of Christianity as it is alien to its 
magical character) that the various orders of the Chris- 
tian ministry point to their essentially lay origin and 
their affinity with the great secular world, of which the 
elements had been pronounced from the beginning of 
Christianity to be neither " common nor unclean." 

3. It is interesting to observe the relics of the prim- 
itive condition of the Church, which have survived 
through all the changes of time. 

The Bishop, in the second century, when first he be- 
came elevated above his fellow Presbyters, appears for a 
time to have concentrated in himself all the 

Vestiges of 

functions which they had hitherto exercised, theprimi- 

" , tive usages. 

If they had hitherto been coequal Bishops he 
gradually became almost sole Presbyter. He alone could 
baptize, consecrate, confirm, ordain, marry, preach, ab- 
solve. But this exclusive monopoly has never been fully 
conceded. In almost every one of these cases the Pres- 
byters have either not altogether lost or have recovered 
some of their ancient privileges. In all Churches the ex- 
clusive absorption of the privileges of the Presbyters into 
the hands of the Bishop has been either resisted or mod- 
ified by occasional retention of the old usages. Every- 
where Presbyters have successfully reasserted the power 
of consecrating, baptizing, marrying, and absolving. 

1 See the authorities quoted in Renan, St. Paul^ 239. 
14 



210 THE CLEEGt. [Chap. X. 

Everywhere, except in the English Church, they have, 
in special cases, claimed the right of confirming. Every- 
where they have, with the Bishop, retained a share in the 
right of ordaining Presbyters. At Alexandria they long 
retained the right of ordaining Bishops.^ 

We commonly speak of three Orders, and the present 
elevation of Bishops has fully justified that phrase ; but 
according to the strict rules of the Church, derived from 
those early times, there are but two — Presbyters and 
Deacons.2 The Abbots of the Middle Ages represent in 
the Episcopal Churches the Presbyterian element — in- 
dependent of the jurisdiction of Bishops, and equal to 
them in all that concerned outward dignity. 

4. Of all the offices in the early Church, that of Dea- 
con was subjected to the most extreme changes. Their 
TheDea- Origin (if, as is probable, we must identify 
*^°^^- them more or less with the Seven in the Acts) 

is the only part of the institution of the Christian min- 
istry of which we have a full description. ^ It was the 
oldest ecclesiastical function ; the most ancient of the 
Holy Orders. It was grounded on the elevation of the 
care of the poor to the rank of a religious service. It 
was the proclamation of the truth that social questions 
are to take the first place amongst religious instruction. 
It was the recognition of political economy as part of 
religious knowledge. The deacons became the first 
preachers of Christianity. They were the first Evangel- 
ists, because they were the first to find their way to the 
homes of the poor. They were the constructors of the 

1 See Lectures on the Eastern Church (Lecture VII.); Bishop Lightfoot, 
"The Christian Ministry," in Commentary on the Philippians, pp. 228-236. 

2 It would seem that in those centuries the chief pastor of every city was a 
Bishop, and those who looked after the villages in the surrounding district were 
called country bishops (xwpeTna/con-oov) ; whether Presbyters or Bishops in the 
later sense is a question which from the identity of the two Orders it is impossi- 
ble to determine with certainty. 

3 Renan, Les Apotres, pp. 120-122. 



Chap. X.] THE DEACONS. 211 

most solid and durable of the institutions of Christian- 
ity, namely, the institutions of charity and beneficence. 
Women as well as men were enrolled in the order. They 
were district-visitors, lay-helpers on the largest scale. 
Nothing shows the divergence between it and the mod- 
ern Order of Deacon more completely than the diver- 
gence of numbers. In the Greek, Roman, and English 
Churches, and, it may be added, in the Presbyterian 
Churches, there are as many Deacons as Presbyters. 
But in the early Church the Presbyters were the many, 
the Deacons the few, and their fewness made their office 
not the smallest but the proudest office and prize in the 
Church.i 

The only institution which retains at once the name 
and the reality is the Diaconate as it exists in the Dutch 
Church. The seven Deacons of Rome exist as a shadow 
in the Cardinal Deacons of the Sacred College of Rome, 
but only as a shadow. They were the seven chaplains 
or officers of the Church. Their head was an acknowl- 
edged potentate of the first magnitude. He was the Arch- 
deacon. Such was Lawrence at Rome, such was Athana- 
sius at Alexandria, such was the Archdeacon of Canter- 
bury in England. If any one were asked who was the first 
ecclesiastic of Western Christendon, he would naturally 
and properly say, the Bishop of Rome. But the second 
is not an archbishop, not a cardinal, but the Archdeacon 
of Rome. Till the eleventh century this was so abso- 
lutely. That office was last filled by Hildebrand, and 
in the deed of consecration of the Church of Monte Cas- 
ino, his name succeeds immediately to that of the Pope, 
and is succeeded by that of the Bishop of Ostia. Since 
his time the office has been rarely filled, and has been 
virtually abolished.^ 

1 Jerome, Epist. ad Evagrium; Thomasin, Vetus et Nova Disoq^lina, i. ii. 29. 

2 Thomasin, Vetus et Nova Disciplina, i. lib. ii. c. 20, s. 3. The Archdeacon 
of Constantinople ceased about the same time. The tirst instance of a Presbyter 
Archdeacon is A. d. 874. 



212 THE CLERGY. [Chap. X. 

5. Before the conversion of the Empire, Bishops and 
Presbyters alike were chosen by the whole mass of the 
Appoint- people ^ in the parish or the diocese (the words 
^^^^' Sit that time were almost interchangeable). 
The election of Damasus at Rome, of Gregory at Con- 
stantinople, of Ambrose at Milan, and of Chrysostom 
at Constantinople are decisive proofs of this practice. 
There were, no doubt, attempts in particular instances 
to modify these popular elections, sometimes by the bish- 
ops, as in Egypt, against the Melitians in the Council of 
Kicasa, sometimes as at Rome, of the leading clergy of 
the place, which gave birth to the College of Cardinals, 
but ultimately in every case by the influence of the sov- 
ereign, first of the Emperor, and then of the several 
princes of Europe. 

6. The form of consecration or ordination varied. In 
the Alexandrian and Abyssinian Churches it was and 
Forms of still is, bv breathing ; in the Eastern Church 

coiisecra- ni tp« ^ i !• 

tion. generally by lifting up the hands m the an- 

cient oriental attitude of benediction ; in the Armenian 
Church, as also at times in the Alexandrian Church, by 
the dead hand of the predecessor ; in the early Celtic 
Church, by the transmission of relics or pastoral staff ; 
in the Latin Church by the form of touching the head, 
which has been adopted from it by all Protestant 
Churches. No one mode was universal ; no written for- 
mula of ordination exists. That by which the Presby- 
ters of the Western Church are ordained is not later 
than the twelfth century, and even that varies widely in 
the place assigned to it in the Roman and in the English 
Churches.^ 

7. Of the ordinary ministrations of the early clergy it 
is difficult to form any conception. One rule, however, 

1 By show of hands (xetpoTovta). Kenan's St. Paul, p. 238. 

2 See Chapter YII. 



Chap. X.] THEIR GROWTH. 213 

is known to have regulated their condition, which every 
Church in Christendom has since rejected except the 
Abyssinian. It was positively forbidden in the fourth 
century, evidently in conformity with prevailing usage, 
for any Bishop, Presbyter, or Deacon, to leave the par- 
ish or diocese in which he had been originally placed. 

The clergy were, as a general rule, married ; and 
though in the Eastern Church this long ceased as re- 
gards Bishops, and in the Latin Church altogether, in 
the Church of the three first centuries it was universal. 

The regulations in the Pastoral Epistles, which are 
under any hypothesis the earliest documents or laws de- 
scribing the duties of the clergy, dwell very slightly ^ on 
the office of teaching, do not even mention the sacra- 
ments, and are for the most part confined to matters of 
conduct and sobriety. The teaching functions were 
added to those of government as the Christian Church 
grew in intelligence, and have varied with the circum- 
stances of the age. The present Eastern Church, though 
once abounding in them, is now almost entirely without 
them ; in the Western Church they have never been 
altogether absent ; in the Protestant churches they have 
almost absorbed all others. But in all, unlike the Jew- 
ish and Pagan Priesthoods, the intellectual and pastoral 
attributes have been in theory predominant, and have 
been the main-stay of the office. 

II. From these changes two conclusions follow. 

1. In the first beginning of Christianity there was no 
such institution as the clergy, and it is conceivable that 
there may be a time when they shall cease to 

•^ •^ , The growth 

be. But though the office of the Christian min- of the 

. . . clergy. 

istry was not one of the original and essential 

1 The only expression which bears upon teaching in the catalogue of a 
Bishop's (or Presbyter's) duties in 1 Tim. iii. 2-7, is "apt to teach " (StSa/criKos) 
ill ver. 7, and in Tit. i. ii. the expressions used in ver. 9. 



214 THE CLERGY. [Chap. X. 

elements of the Christian religion, yet it grew naturally 
out of the want which was created. There was a kind 
of natural necessity for the growth of the clergy in order 
to meet the increasing needs of the Christian community. 
Just as kings and judges and soldiers spring up to suit 
the wants of civil society, so the clergy sprang up to 
meet the wants of religious society. Even in those re- 
ligious communities which have endeavored to dispense 
with such an order it has reasserted itself in other forms. 
The Mussulman religion, properly speaking, admits of no 
clergy. But the legal profession has very nearly taken 
their place. The Mufti and the Imam are religious quite 
as much as they are civil authorities. The English So- 
ciety of Friends, although they acknowledge no separate 
Order, yet have always had well-known accredited teach- 
ers, who are to them as the Popes and Pastors of their 
community. 

The intellectual element in the Christian society will 
always require some one to express it, and this, in some 
form or another, will probably be the clergy, or, as Cole- 
ridge expressed it, the " Clerisy." The mechanical part 
of the office, which was characteristic of the Priest, did 
not belong to the office in early Christian times. The 
" elders " were derived from the Jewish synagogue, but 
it was the excelknce of Christianity to inspire them with 
a new life, to make them fill a new place, to make them 
occupy all the vacant opportunities of good that this 
world offers. 

2. It has been said that the Christian Church or Soci- 
ety existed before the institution of the Christian clergy. 
Origin of ^^ ^^^^ manner the Christian clergy existed be- 
Episcopacy. ^^^.q ^^^ institution of Christian Bishops. In 
the first age there was no such marked distinction as 
now we find between the different orders of the clergy. 
It was only by slow degrees that the name of Bishop be- 



Chap. X.] ORIGIN OF EPISCOPACY. 215 

came appropriated to one chief pastor raised high in rank 
and station above the mass of the clergy. But here, 
again, it was the demand which created the supply. The 
demand for distinction and inequality of offices arose from 
the fact that there is in human nature a distinction and 
inequality of gifts. If all clergymen were equal in char- 
acter and power, there would be no place for inequality of 
rank or station amongst them. It is because, like other 
men, they are unequally gifted, because there are from 
time to time amongst them, as amongst others, men who 
have been endowed with superior natures, that Episcopacy 
exists and will always exist, in substance, if not in form, 
but often in form also, because the substance of the char- 
acter claims an outward form in which to embody itself. 
Doubtless there have been times when the clergy and 
the Church were able to effect their great objects in the 
world without the aid of higher officers ; just as there 
have been battles which have been won by the rank and 
file of soldiers without the aid, or even in spite, of gener- 
als. But still the more usual experience of mankind has 
proved that in all conditions of life there are men who 
rise above their fellows, and who therefore need corre- 
ponding offices in which these more commanding gifts 
may find a place ; and who by the development of those 
gifts through the higher offices are themselves a standing 
proof that the offices are necessary. Even in the Apos- 
tolic age, before the existence of what we now call Bish- 
ops, and when the word Bishop was synonymous with 
Presbyter or Elder, there were forward and gifted disci- 
ples, like Timotheus and Titus, who took the lead. Even 
in Presbyterian Churches we see again and again men 
who by their superior character and attainments are 
Bishops in all but in name, and who only need such 
offices to call out their full energies. There exist Epis- 
copal Churches, such as those in Greece and Italy, where 



216 THE CLERGY. [Chap. X. 

the Bishops have been so numerous that, as in early 
times, they have been but Presbyters with another name. 
But in England, and in former days in Germany, they 
have always been comparatively few in number, and it is 
this rarity, this exaltation, which causes that agreement 
of the office with the natural fitness of" things. 

III. In what sense can the institution of the Clergy or 

of Bishops be said to have a divine origin ? Not in the 

sense of its having been directly and visibly 

Their origin. i t i i i i t-< i c r^^ • • • 

established by the J^ounder oi Christianity. 
Amongst the gifts which our Lord gave to mankind dur- 
His life on earth, the Christian ministry, as we now pos- 
sess it, is not one. He gave us during the years of His 
earthly manifestation, that which was far greater — 
which was in fact Christianity — He gave us Himself — 
Himself in His life, in His death, in His mind, in His 
character, in His immortal life in which He lives forever 
— Himself, with the immediate impression of Himself 
on the characters and memories of those His friends and 
disciples who stood immediately around Him, and who 
carried on the impulse which they derived from personal 
contact with Him. But no permanent order of minis-- 
ters appears in that spiritual kingdom of which He spoke 
on the hills of Galilee or on the slopes of Olivet. The 
Twelve Apostles whom He chose had no successors like 
themselves. No second Peter, no second John, no second 
Paul stepped into the places of those who had seen the 
Lord Jesus ; and if their likenesses have been in any 
measure seen again in later times, it has been at long 
intervals, few and far between, when great lights have 
been raised up to rekindle amongst men the expiring 
flame of truth and goodness by extraordinary gifts of 
genius or of grace. The Seventy Disciples that went 
forth at the Lord's command into the cities of Palestine 
were soon gathered to their graves, and no order of the 



Chap. X.] THEIR OKIGIN. 217 

same kind or of the same number came in tlieir stead. 
They went out once, and returned back to their Master, 
to go out no more. The Church, the Christian Society, 
existed in those faithful followers, even from the begin- 
ning, and will doubtless last to the very end. Wherever, 
in any time or country, two or three are gathered to- 
gether by a common love and faith, there will be a Chris- 
tian Church. But even for years after the Lord's depart- 
ure, such a society existed without a separate order of 
clergy. The whole Christian brotherhood was full of 
life, and there was as yet no marked distinction between 
its different portions. All were alike holy — all were 
alike consecrated. Tlierefore it is that the institution of 
the Christian ministry has never been placed in any an- 
cient Creed amongst the fundamental facts or doctrines 
of the Gospel ; therefore it is that (in the language of 
the English Church) ordination is not a sacrament, be- 
cause it has no visible sign or ceremony ordained by 
Christ Himself. 

Yet there is another sense in which the Christian min- 
istry is a gift of our Divine Master. It is brought out in 
the well-known passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians ; 
" When He ascended up on high, He led captivity cap- 

iive, and gave gifts unto men And He gave some 

to be apostles, and some to be prophets, and some to be 
evangelists, and some to be shepherds and teachers." ^ 
What is it that is meant by saying that it was only after 
His withdrawal from us, that He gave tliese gifts to men, 
and that amongst these gifts were the various offices, of 
which two at least (the pastoral and the intellectual) 
contain the germs of all the future clergy of Christen- 
dom ? It is this — that not in His earthly life, not in 
His direct communion with men, not as part of the orig- 
inal manifestation of Christianity, but (so to speak) as a 

1 Eph. iv. 8-11. 



218 THE CLERGY. [Chap. X. 

Divine afterthought, as the result of the complex influ- 
ences which were showered down upon the earth after 
its Founder had left it, as a part of the vast machinery 
of Christian civilization, were the various professions of 
Christendom formed, and amongst these the great voca- 
tion of the Christian ministry. 

The various grades of the Christian clergy have sprung 
up in Christian society in the same ways, and by the 
same divine, because the same natural, necessity, as the 
various grades of government, law, and science — a neces- 
sity only more urgent, more universal, and therefore more 
divine, in so far as the religious and intellectual wants 
of mankind are of a more general, of a more simple, 
and therefore of a more divine kind than their social and 
physical wants. All of them vary, in each age or coun- 
try, according to the varieties of age and country — ac- 
cording to the civil constitution, according to the geo- 
graphical area, according to the climate and custom of 
east and west, north and south. We find popular elec- 
tion, clerical election, imperial election, ministerial elec- 
tion, ordination by breathing, ordination by sacred relics, 
ordination by elevation of hands, ordination by imposi- 
tion of hands, vestments and forms derived from Roman 
civil life, or from a peculiar profession from this or that 
school, of this or that fashion — spheres more or less 
limited, a humble country village, an academic cloister, 
a vast town population, or a province as large as a king- 
dom. The enumeration of these varieties is not a con- 
demnation, but a justification, of their existence. The 
ChristiaH clergy has grown with the. growth and varied 
with the variations of Christian society, and the more 
complex, the more removed from the rudeness and sim- 
plicity of the early ages, the more likely they are to be 
in accordance with truth and reason, which is the mind 
of Christ. 



Chap. X.] THEIR ORIGIN. 219 

This, therefore, is the divine and the human side of 
the Christian ministry. Divine, because it belongs to 
the inevitable growth of Christian hopes and sympathies, 
of increasing truth, of enlarging charity. Human, be- 
cause it arose out of, and is subject to, the vicissitudes of 
human passions, human ignorance, human infirmities, 
earthly opportunities. In so far as it has a permanent 
and divine character, it has a pledge of immortal exist- 
ence, so long as Christian society exists with its peculiar 
wants and aspirations ; in so far as it has a human char- 
acter, it seeks to accommodate itself to the wants of each 
successive age, and needing the support, and the sym- 
pathy, and the favor, of all the other elements of social 
intercourse by which it is surrounded. It has been at 
times so degraded that it has become the enemy of all 
progress. It has been at times in the forefront of civiliza- 
tion. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE POPE. 

Theee hundred years ago there were three official 
personages in Europe of supreme historical interest, of 
whom one is gone, and two survive, though in a reduced 
and enfeebled form. 

The three were the Emperor of the Holy Roman Em- 
pire, the Pope of Rome, and the Sultan of Constan- 
tinople. They were alike in this, that they combined a 
direct descent of association from the old classical world 
with an important position in the modern world, — a 
high secular with a high ecclesiastical position, — a strong 
political influence with a personal authority of an ex- 
ceptional kind. 

The Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was the 
greatest sovereign in Europe. He was, in fact, properly 
Emperor of Speaking, the only sovereign of Europe. Other 
R!riiJS^"Em- kings and princes were, in strict parlance, his 
P^^®' deputies. He was the fountain of honor whence 

they derived their titles. He took precedence of them 
all. He was the representative of the old Roman Em- 
pire. In him, the highest, intelligences of the time saw 
the representative of order, the counterpoise of individual 
tyranny, the majesty at once of Religion and of Law. 
No other single potentate so completely suggested the 
idea of Christendom as a united body. No throne in 
Europe presented in its individual rulers personages of 
grander character, or at least of grander power, than the 
Empire could boast in Charlemagne, Frederick Barbarossa, 



Chap. XL] THE POPE. 221 

Frederick II., and Cliarles Y. Long before this splen^did 
dignitary passed away, his real power was gone, and Vol- 
taire had truly 'declared of him that there was in him 
" nothing Holy, nothing Roman, "and nothing Imperial." 
But it was not till our own time, in 1816, when the Holy 
Roman Empire was changed into the Empire of Austria, 
that he finally disappeared from the stage of human 
affairs. The Emperor of Germany, as regards Germany, 
took the vacant place in 1871, but not as regards Eu- 
rope. 

The two others remain. They in many respects re- 
semble each other and their defunct brother, perhaps in 
the frap:ilitY of their thrones, certainly in the 

^ T . p 1 • 1 . . 1 1. • The Sultan. 

concentrated interest ot their historical, politi- 
cal, and religious position. The Sultan perhaps com- 
prises in his own person most of the original character- 
istics of the institution which he represents. He is at 
once the representative of the Byzantine Cassars and 
the representative of the last of the Caliphs, that is, of 
the Prophet himself. He is the chief of a mighty em- 
pire, and at the same time the head of a powerful and 
wide-spread religion. Of all the three, he is the one 
whose person is invested with the most inviolable sanc- 
tity. His temporal dominion in Europe has almost 
vanished. But he still retains " the Palaces and the 
Gardens " of the Bosphorus, and his ecclesiastical au- 
thority over his co-religionists remains undisturbed if not 
undisputed. 

It is of the third of this august brotherhood that we 
propose to speak. The Papacy is now passing through 
a phase in some degree resernbliiisc that of the 

The Pope. 

Holy Roman Emperor in 1816, and that of the 
Sultan of Constantinople at the present moment. But 
its peculiarities are too deeply rooted in the past to be 
entirely shaken by any transitory change. 



222 THE POPE. [Chap. XL 

It is not as an object of attack or defence that this 
great dignitary is here discussed, but as a mine of deep 
and curious interest — the most ancient of all the rulers 
of Europe. He presents many aspects, each one of 
which might be taken by itself and viewed without 
prejudice to the others. Some of these are purely his- 
torical. Others are political and secular. Others involve 
questions reaching into difficult problems of religion and 
theology. They may be briefly enumerated thus : — 

The Pope may be considered — I. As the representa- 
tive of the customs of Christian antiquity ; II. As the 
representative of the ancient Roman Empire ; III. Asan 
Italian Bishop and Italian Prince ; IV. As " the Pope," 
or chief oracle of Christendom ; V. As the head of the 
ecclesiastical profession ; VI. As an element in the future 
arrangements of Christendom. 

I. The Pope is a representative of Christian antiquity. 
In this respect he is a perfect museum of ecclesiastical 
The Pope as curiositics — a mass, if we wish so to regard 
sentativeof Mm, of latent primitive Protestantism. In him, 
antiquity, from the high dignity and tenaciously conser- 
vative tendencies of the office, customs endured which 
everywhere else perished. 

The public entrance of that great personage into one 
of the Roman churches, at the time when such proces- 
sions were allowed by ecclesiastical authority, can never 
be forgotten. Borne aloft above the surface of the crowd 
— seen from head to foot — the peacock fans waving be- 
hind him — the movement of the hand alone indicating 
that it is a living person, and not a waxen figure — he 
completely represented the identification of the person 
with the institution ; he gave the impression that there 
alone was an office which carried the mind back to the 
times, as Lord Macaulay says, when tigers and camelo- 
pards bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. 



Chap. XI.] AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF ANTIQUITY. 223 

1. Take his ordinary dress. He always appears in a 
white gown. He is, according to a well-known Roman 
proverb, " the White Pope," in contradistinc- 

His dress. 

tion to the more formidable " Black Pope," the 
General of the order of the Jesuits, who wears a black 
robe. This white dress is the white frock of the early 
Christians,^ such as we see in the oldest mosaics, before 
the difference between lay and clerical costume had 
sprung up, not the " surplice " of the Church of England, 
nor the " white linen robe " of the Jewish priest, but 
the common classical dress of all ranks in Roman society. 
To this common white garb the early Christians adhered 
with more than usual tenacity, partly to indicate their 
cheerful, festive character, as distinct from mourners who 
went in black, partly to mark their separation from the 
peculiar black dress of the philosophical sects with which 
they were often confounded. The Pope thus carries on 
the recollection of an age when there was no visible dis- 
tinction between the clergy and laity ; he shows, at any 
rate, in his own person, the often repeated but often for- 
gotten fact, that all ecclesiastical costumes have originated 
in the common dress of the time, and been merely per- 
petuated in the clergy, or in this case in the head of the 
clergy, from their longer adherence to ancient habits. 

2. Take his postures. At the reception of the Holy 
Communion, whilst others kneel, his proper attitude is 
that of sitting: ; and, although it has been altered 

° ° . His postures. 

of late years, he still so stands as to give the 
appearance of sitting.^ It is possible that this may have 
been continued out of deference to his superior dignity ; 
but it is generally believed, and it is very probable, that 
in that attitude he preserves the tradition of the primi- 
tive posture of the early Christians, who partook of the 

1 Gerbet, Rome Chretienne, ii. 44. 

2 See note at the end of the chapter. 



224 THE POPE. [Chap. XL 

Holy Supper in the usual attitude of guests at a meal — 
recumbent or sitting, as the case might be. This has now 
been exchanged throughout a large part of Christendom 
for a more devotional attitude, — in the East for stand- 
ing, in the West for kneeling. The Pope still retains in 
part or in whole the posture of the first Apostles ; and in 
this he is followed by the Presbyterians of Scotland and 
the Nonconformists of England, who endeavor by this 
act to return to that which, in the Pope himself, has 
never been entirely abandoned. It brings before us the 
ancient days when the Sacrament was still a supper, when 
the communicants were still guests, when the altar was 
still a table. 

3. This leads us to another custom retained in the 
Pope from the same early time. The Pope, when he 
celebrates mass in his own cathedral of St. John 
Lateran, celebrates it, not on a structure of mar- 
ble or stone, such as elsewhere constitutes the altars of 
Roman Catholic churches, bat on a wooden plank, said 
to be part of the table on which St. Peter in the house 
of Pudens consecrated the first communion in Rome. 
This primitive wooden table — the mark of the original 
social character of the Lord's Supper — has been pre- 
served throughout the East ; and in most Protestant 
Churches, including the Church of England, was restored 
at the Reformation. But it is interesting to find this in- 
disputable proof of its antiquity and catholicity preserved 
in the very heart of the see of Rome. Some persons have 
been taught to regard stone altars as identical with 
Popery ; some to regard them as necessary for Christian 
worship. The Pope, by this usage of the old wooden 
table, equally contradicts both. The real change from 
wood to stone was occasioned in the first instance, not by 
the substitution of the idea of 'an altar for a table, but by 
the substitution of a tomb, containing the relics of a 
martyr, for both altar and table. 



Chap. XL] AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF ANTIQUITY. 225 

4. Again, when tlie Pope celebrates mass, he stands, 
not with his back to the people, nor at the north end, nor 
at the northwest side, of the table, but behind 

.,,.,, ^ p ' 1 His position. 

it With his back to the wall, and lacmg the con- 
gregation. This is the exact reverse of the position of 
the Roman Catholic clergy generally, and of those who 
would wish especially to imitate them. It much more 
nearly resembles the position of Presbyterian and Non- 
conformist ministers at the time of the Holy Communion, 
when they stand at one side of the table, facing the con- 
gregation, who are on the other side. It was the almost 
necessary consequence of the arrangement of the original 
basilica, where the altar stood not at the east end, but in 
the middle of the building, the central point between 
clergy and laity. It represents, of course, what must 
have been the position in the original institution as seen 
in pictures of th^ Last Supper. It is also the position 
which prevailed in the Church of England for the first 
hundred years after the Reformation, and till some years 
after the Restoration, and is still directly enjoined in the 
rubrics of the English Prayer Book. The position of a 
Presbyterian minister at the time of the celebration of 
the Lord's Supper, either as he stands in the pulpit, or 
when descending he takes his place behind the table, with 
his elders around him, precisely reseini)les the attitude of 
an early Christian bishop surrounded by his presbyters. ^ 
Here again Protestantism, or, if we prefer to call it so, 
primitive Christianity, appears in the Pope, when it has 
perished on all sides of him, 

5. Another peculiarity of the Pope's celebration of 
mass gives us a glimpse into a phase of the early Church 

'which is highly instructive. The Gospel and nisian- 
Epistle are read both in Greek and Latin. This ^''^°®' 
is a vestige doubtless of the early condition of the first 

1 See Chapter IX. 
15 



226 THE POPE. [Chap. XL 

Roman ChurcL, wliicli, as Dean Milman has well pointed 
out, was not an Italian but a Greek communitv — tlie 
community to which, as being Greek and Oriental, St. 
Paul wrote, not in Latin but in Greek ; the community 
of which the first teachers — Clement and Hermas — 
wrote, not in Latin but in Greek. It preserves the cu- 
rious and instructive fact that the chief of Latin Christen- 
dom was originally not an " Italian priest," but an alien ; 
a Greek in language, an Oriental in race. It gives us an 
insight into the foreign elements out of which the early 
Western Churches everywhere were formed. It is in 
fact a remnant of a state of things not later than the 
third century. Before that time the sacred language of 
the Roman Church was Greek. After that time, Greek 
gave way to Latin, and by the fifth century the Roman 
clergy were not even able to understand the tongue which 
to their forefathers in the faith had been sacred and litur- 
gical, whilst the language of the " Vulgate " and the 
" Canon of the Mass " were still profane.^ 

6. Again, in the Pope's private chapel, and on all oc- 
casions when the Pope himself officiates, there is a total 
absence of instrumental music. This, too, is a 
continuation of the barbaric simplicity of the 
early Christian service. The Roman Catholic ritual, as 
well as that of the»Protestant Churches of Holland, Ger- 
many, France, Switzerland, and England, have joined in 
defying this venerable precedent. In two branches only 
of the Church outside the Pope's chapel it still lingers ; 
namely, in the worship of the Eastern churches and in 
some of the Presbyterian churches of Scotland. At Mos- 
cow and at Glasgow still there are places where the sound 
of an organ would be regarded as a blast from the Seven 
Hills. But, in fact, the Pope himself is on this point a 
Greek and a Presbyterian, and in this refusal of the ac- 

1 Rossi, Eoma Sotter. ii. 237. 



Chap. XL] AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF ANTIQUITY. 227 

compaiiiments of the sublime arts of modern music, is at 
one with those who have thrown off his allegiance and 
protest against the practices of those who have accepted 
it. 

7. Again, alone of all great ecclesiastics of his Church, 
he has no crosier, except a small temporary silver one at 
ordinations. The simple reason of this is, that The absence 
being borne aloft on the shoulders of his guards, o^^^^^^'^^- 
and thus not being obliged to walk like other ecclesias- 
tics, he has no need of a walking-stick. This at once re- 
veals the origin of the formidable crosier, — not the sym- 
bol of the priesthood against the state, — not even the 
crook of the pastor over his flock, but simply the walk- 
ing-stick, the staff of the old man, of the presbyter, such 
as appears in the ancient drama of Greece and Rome, 
and in the famous riddle of Oedipus. It puts in a vivid 
form the saying of Pius VII. to a scrupulous Protestant, 
" Surely the blessing of an old man will do you no harm." 
The crosier was the symbol of old age, and of nothing 
besides.^ 

These instances might be multiplied : but they are 
sufficient to show the interest of the subject. They show 
how we find agreements and differences where we least 
expect it — how innocent and insignificant are some of 
the ceremonies to which we attach most importance — 
how totally different was the primitive state, even of the 
Roman Church, to that which now prevails both in 
Roman Catholic and Protestant countries. They are 

1 This absence of the crosier has naturally given birth to a brood of false 
symbolical explanations such as have encompassed all these simple observances. 
The legend is, that the Pope lost the crosier because St. Peter sent his staff to 
raise from the dead a disciple at Treves. This disciple afterwards became 
Bishop of Treves ; and the Pope therefore, when he enters the diocese of 
Treves, is believed on that occasion to carry the crosier. (St. Thomas Aquinas, 
0pp. vol. xiii. 42.) Another explanation is, that the curve of the crook indi- 
cates a restraint of the episcopal power, and that, as the Pope has no restraint, 
therefore he has no crook. (Ibid.) 



228 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

lessons of charity and of wisdom — of caution and of for- 
bearance. In these respects the Pope has acted merely 
as the shoal which, like the island in his own Tiber, has 
arrested the straws of former ages, as they floated down 
the stream of time. 

II. These usages belong to him as a Christian pastor, 
and are the relics of Christian antiquity. But there are 
Successor of others which reveal him to us in another aspect, 
ors. and which have drifted down through another 

channel. No saying of ecclesiastical history is more preg- 
nant than that in which Hobbes declares that "the Pope 
is the ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting 
crowned upon the grave thereof." This is the true orig- 
inal basis of his dignity and power, and it appears even 
in the minutest details. 

If he were to be regarded only as the successor of St. 
Peter, his chief original seat would, of course, be in the 
Basilica of St. Peter, over the Apostle's grave. But this 
is not the case. St. Peter's church, in regard to the 
Pope, is merely a chapel of gigantic proportions attached 
to the later residence which the Pope adopted under the 
Vatican Hill. The present magnificent church was 
erected to be the mausoleum of Julius II., of which one 
fragment onl}^ — the statue of Moses — remains. The 
Pope's proper see and Cathedral is the Basilica of St. 
John " in the Later an " — that is, in the Lateran palace 
which was the real and only bequest of Constantine to 
the Roman Bishop. It had been the palace of the Lat- 
eran family. From them it passed to the Imperial dy- 
nasty. In it the Empress Fausta, wife of Constantine, 
usually lived. In it, after Constantine's departure to 
Constantinople, the Roman Bishop dwelt as a great 
Roman noble. In it accordingly is the true Pontifical 
throne, on the platform of which are written the words 
Hcec est papalis sedes et pontificalis. Over its front is 



Chap. XL] SUCCESSOR OF THE EMPERORS. 229 

inscribed the decree, Papal and Imperial, declaring it to 
be the mother and mistress of all churches. In it he 
takes possession of the See of Rome, and of the govern- 
ment of the Pontifical States. 

Although the story of Constantine's abdication to Pope 
Sylvester is one of the fables of the Papacy, yet it has 
in it this truth — that by the retirement of the Emperors 
to the East, they left Rome without a head, and that 
vacant place was naturally and imperceptibly filled by 
the chief of the rising community. To him the splendor 
and the attributes, which properly belonged to the Em- 
peror, were unconsciously transferred. 

Here, as in the case of ecclesiastical usages, we trace 
it in the small details which have lingered in him when 
they have perished elsewhere. The chair of state, the 
sella gestatoria^ in which the Pope is borne aloft, is the 
ancient palanquin of the Roman nobles, and, of course, 
of the Roman Princes. The red slippers which he wears 
are the red shoes, campagines^ of the Roman Emperor. 
The kiss which the faithful imprint on those shoes is the 
descendant of the kiss first imprinted on the foot of the 
Emperor Caligula, who introduced it from Persia. The 
fans which go behind him are the punkahs of the East- 
ern Emperors, borrowed from the court of Persia. 

The name by which his highest ecclesiastical character 
is indicated is derived, not from the Jewish High Priest, 
but from the Roman Emperor. The Latinized version 
of the Jewish High Priest was " Summus Sacerdos." 
But the Pope is ^ Pontifex Maximus," and the " Ponti- 
fex Maximus " was a well-known and recognized per- 
sonage in the eyes of the Roman population, long before 
they had ever heard of the race of Aaron or of Caiaphas.^ 

1 It .is perhaps doubtful how far the word was confined to the Bishops of 
Rome. But the evidence is in favor of its having been appropriated to them in 
the first instance. 



230 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

He was the high Pagan dignitary who lived in a pubhc 
residence at the northeast corner of the Palatine, the 
chief of the colleo-e of ''Pontiffs " or ''Bridge-makers." 
It was his duty to conduct all public sacrifices, to scourge 
to death any one who insulted the Vestal Virgins, to pre- 
side at the assemblies and games, to be present at the 
religious ceremony of any solemn marriage, and to ar- 
range the calendar. His office was combined with many 
great secular posts, and thus was at last held by the most 
illustrious of the sons of Rome. It was by virtue of his 
pontificate that Julius Csesar in his pontifical residence 
enabled Clodius to penetrate into the convent of the Ves- 
tals close by. It is to the pontificate, not to the sov- 
ereio:ntT of Julius C^sar, that we owe the Julian cal- 
endar.^ From him it descended to the Emperors, his 
successors, and from them to the Popes. The two are 
brought together in the most startling form on the ped- 
estal of the obelisk on the Monte Citorio. On one side 
is the original dedication of it by Augustus Ctesar, 
'• Pontifex Maximus,'' to the Sun ; on the other, by Pius 
VI., " Pontifex Maximus," to Christ. When Bishop 
Dupanloup, in a pamphlet on " L'Atheisme et le Peril 
Social,'' described the desertion of the Holy Father by 
the late Emperor of France, it was more appropriate 
than he thought when he said, '• The Grand Pontiff 
covers his face with his mantle, and ss^js ' Ut tu fili.'"^ 
It was a Grand Pontiff who so covered his face, and who 
so exclaimed : but that Pontiff was Julius C^sar, to 
whose office the Pope has directly succeeded. 

This is more than a mere resemblance of words. It 
brings before us the fact that the groundwork of the 

J- For its Pagan origin, see Rossi, ii. 306. Bat is it (as he says) only from the 
Renaissance ? Tertullian applied it ironically in the third century, and it -would 
appear that it -n-as used as a date from the fourth centmy, instead of the Con- 
Bulship. (See Mabillon, and Theiner, Codex Di^lomaticus.) 



Chap. XL] SUCCESSOR OF THE EMPERORS. 231 

Pope's power is secular — secular, no doubt, in its grand 
sense, resting on the prestige of ages, but still a power of 
this world, and supported always by weapons of this 
world. 

He held, and holds, his rank amongst the bishops of 
Christendom, as the Bishop of the Imperial City, as the 
magistrate of that Imperial City when the Emperors left 
it. So, and for the same reason, Constantinople was the 
second see ; so, and for the same reason, Csesarea, as the 
seat of the Roman government, not Jerusalem, was the 
seat of the Metropolitan of Palestine. 

The secular origin of the primacy of Rome belongs, in 
fact, to the secular origin of much beside in the early 
customs of the Church, illustrating and illustrated by 
them. The first church was a " basilica," not a temple, 
but a Roman court of justice, accommodated to the pur- 
poses of Christian worship. ^ The word "bishop," episco- 
pus, was taken, not from any usage of the Temple or of 
the Synagogue, but from the officers created in the differ- 
ent subject-towns of Athens; "borrowed," as Hooker 
says, "from the Grecians." The secular origin of the 
" holy orders " and " ordination " ^ have been already 
indicated. The word and idea of a " diocese " was taken 
from the existing divisions of the empire. The orientation 
of churches is from the rites of Etruscan augury. The 
whole ecclesiastical ceremonialism is, according to some 
etymologists, the bequest of Ccere, the sacred city of the 
Etruscans. The first figures of winged angels are Etrus- 
can. The officiating bishop at ordinations in St. John 
Lateran washes his hands with medulla panis according 
to the usage of ancient Roman banquets. Of all these 
Christian usages of secular and Pagan origin, the Pope 

1 See Chapter IX. 

2 As late as the sixth century Gregory the Great uses " ordo" for the civil 
magistrate, and "clerus" for the clergy. {Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, 
ii. 146-149.) 



232 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

is the most remarkable example — a constant witness to 
the earthly origin of his own greatness, but also, which 
is of more general importance, to the indistinguishable 
union of things ecclesiastical and things civil, and here, 
as in the case of the more purely ecclesiastical customs, 
the investigation of his position shows on the one hand 
the historical interest, on the other the religious insignifi- 
cance, of much which now excites such vehement enthu- 
siasm, both of love and of hatred. 

III. Following up this aspect of the Pope's position, 
we arrive at his character as an Italian Bishop and an 
As Italian Italian Priuce. Both go together. These belong 
prmce. ^^ ^^^^ state of thiugs at the beginning of the 
Middle Ages, out of which his power was formed. His 
more general and universal attributes are derived from 
other considerations which must be treated apart. But 
his Italian nationality and bis Italian principality are the 
natural result of a condition of society which has long- 
since perished everywhere else. The Pope's "temporal 
power " belongs to that feudal and princely character 
which was shared by so many great prelates of the Mid- 
dle Ages. Almost all the German Archbishops possessed 
this special kind of sovereignty, and in our own country 
the Bishops of Durham. The Archbishops of Cologne 
were Princes and Electors more than they were Arch- 
bishops. In the portraits of the last of the dynasty in the 
palace at Briihl, near Bonn, for one which represents him 
as an ecclesiastic, there are ten which represent him as a 
prince or as a soldier. Of all those potentates, the Pope 
is almost the only one who remains. His principality is 
now regarded as an anomaly by some or as a miracle by 
others. But when it first existed, it was one of a large 
group of similar principalities. When, therefore, the 
Pope stood defended by his Chassepot rifles, or, in his 
reduced state, still surrounded by his Swiss guards, he 



Chap. XI.] AS ITALIAN PRINCE. 233 

must be regarded as the last of the brotherhood of the 
fighting, turbulent, courtly prelates of the Rhine, of the 
Prince Bishop of Durham, or the Ducal Bishop of Osna- 
burgh. His dynasty through its long course has partaken 
of the usual variations of character which appear in all 
the other Italian principalities. Its accessions of property 
have come in like manner ; sometimes by the sword, as 
of Julius II.; sometimes by the donations of the great 
Countess Matilda ; sometimes by the donations of Joanna, 
the questionable Queen of Naples. Like the other me- 
diaeval prelates, the Popes had their hounds, and hunted 
even down till the time of Pius VI. Mariana, on the 
road to Ostia, was a famous hunting-seat of Leo X. 

If the Pope were essentially what he is sometimes 
believed to be, the universal Bishop of the universal 
Church, we should expect to find the accompaniments 
of his ofl&ce corresponding to this. But, in fact, it is far 
otherwise. In most of the conditions of his office, the 
Italian Bishop and the Italian Prince are the first objects 
of consideration. That the first prelate of the West 
should have been, as we have seen, the Bishop of the 
old Imperial city, was natural enough. But it is some- 
what startling to find that tbe second prelate of the West 
is not one of the great hierarchy of France, or Germany, 
or Spain, or England, but the Bishop of the deserted 
Ostia — because Ostia is the second see in the Roman 
States. It is he — with the Bishops of Portus and Sabina 
— who crowns and anoints the Pope. It is he who is 
the Dean of the Sacred College. 

And this runs throughout. The electors to the office of 
the Pope, whether in early days or now, were not, and 
are not, the universal Church, but Romans or Italians.^ 
In early days it was in the hands of the populace of the 

1 See the account in Mr. Cartwright's interesting volume on Papal Con- 
claves^ p. 36. 



234 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

city of Rome From the fourth to the eleventh century 
it was accompanied by the usual arts of bribery, fraud, 
and occasionally bloodshed. Afterwards it was shared 
with the civil authorities of the Roman municipality ; 
and so deeply was this, till lately, rooted in the institu- 
tion, that, on the death of a Pope, the Senator resumed 
his functions as the supreme governor of the city.^ 

Since the twelfth centur}^ the election has been vested 
in the College of Cardinals. But the College of Cardi- 
nals, though restrained by the veto of the three Catholic 
Powers, is still predominantly Italian ; and the result of 
the election has, since the fourth century, been almost 
entirely confined to Italian Popes. The one great ex- 
ception is an exception which proves the rule. During 
the seventy years when the Popes were at Avignon, they 
were there as completely French as before and since they 
have been Italians ; and for the same reason — because 
they were French princes living in a French city, as now 
and before they were Italian princes living in an Italian 
city. 

The feudal sovereignty over Naples was maintained 
by the giving of a white horse on St. Peter's day by the 
king of Naples — down till the time of Charles II. : the 
protest against the annexation of Avignon by France has 
been abandoned since 1815. 

Whatever ingenuity, whatever intrigues, surround the 
election of a Pope are Italian, and of that atmosphere 
the whole pontifiical dynasty breathes from the time it 
became a principality till (with the exception of its exile 
in Provence) the present time. 

IV. Then follow the more general attributes of the 
As "the Pope. He is " the Pope." This title was not 
Pope." originally his own. It belonged to a time when 

1 His long train at mass is carried (amongst others) by the Senator of Eome 
and the Prince " assisting." 



Chap. XL] AS POPE. 235 

all teachers were so called. It is like some of the other 
usages of which we have spoken, a relic of the innocent 
infantine simplicity of the primitive Church. Every 
teacher was then " Papa,''^ The word was then what it 
is still in English, the endearing name of " father." In 
the Eastern Church, the custom continues still. Every 
parish priest, every pastor, is there a " Pope," a " Papa," 
and the ordinary mode of address in Russia is " my fa- 
ther " ("Batinska "). Gradually the name became re- 
stricted, either in use or significance. Just as the Bishops 
gradually rose out of the Presbyters, to form a separate 
rank, so the name of " Pope " was gradually applied 
specially to bishops. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, in 
the third century, was constantly entitled " Most glorious 
and blessed Pope ; " and the French bishops, in like 
manner, were called " Lord Pope." There is a gate in 
the Cathedral of Le Puy, in Auvergne, still called the 
" Papal Gate," not because of the entrance of any Pope 
of Rome there, but because of an old inscription which 
records the death of one of the bishops of Le Puy under 
the name of " Pope." ^ 

And yet, further, if there was any one Bishop in those 
early times who was peculiarly invested with this title 
above the rest, and known emphatically as " the Pope," 
it was not the Bishop of Rome, but the Bishop of Alex- 
andria. From the third century downwards he was " the 
Pope " emphatically beyond all others. Various reasons 
are assigned for this honor ; but, in fact, it naturally fell 
to him as the head of the most learned church in the 
world, to whom all the other churches looked for advice 
and instruction. 

In the early centuries, if the Bishop of Rome had the 
title at all, it was merely like other bishops. It was in 

1 The name is first applied to the Bishop of Rome in the letter of a deacon 
to Pope Marcellus, A. d. 275, but it was not till 400 that they took it formally. 



236 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

Latin properly only used with, the addition " My Pope," ^ 
or the like, and this is the earliest known instance of its 
application to the Roman Pontiff. It was not till the 
seventh century that it became his peculiar designation, 
or rather, that dropping off from all the otlier western 
bishops, it remained fixed in him, and was formally ap- 
propriated to its exclusive use in the eleventh. What 
" Papa " was in Greek and Latin, " Abba " was in Syriac, 
and thus accordingly was preserved in " Abbot " " Abb^," 
as applied to the heads of monastic communities, and 
to the French clergy, almost as generally as the word 
" Papa " has been in the Eastern Church for the paro- 
chial clergy. 

It is curious that a word which more than any other 
recalls the original equality not only of Patriarch with 
Bishop, of Bishop with Bishop, but of Bishop with Pres- 
byter, should have gradually become the designation of 
the one preeminent distinction which is the keystone of 
the largest amount of inequality that prevails in the 
Christian hierarchy. 

It is also to be observed that a word used to designate 
the head of the Latin Church should have been derived 
from the Greek and Eastern forms of Christianity. 

What is it which constitutes the essence of this power 
of the Pope ? 

We have already seen that his dignity at Rome is in- 
herited from the Roman Emperors — his territory from 
his position as an Italian Prelate. But his power as the 
Pope is supposed to give him the religious sovereignty of 
the world. 

It is often supposed that he possesses this as successor 
of St. Peter in the see of Rome. This, however, is an 

1 "Papa suus," "Papa meus " "Papa noster," is the only form in which it 
occurs in the third and fourth centuries, as a term not of office, but of affection, 
and meaning not a bishop but a teacher. (Mabillon, Vetera Analecta, 141.) So 
the head of the Abyssinian clergy is called Ahouroa, i. e., " our Father." 



Chap. XL] AS POPE. 237 

assumption which, under any theory that may be held 
concerning his office, is obviously untenable. That St. 
Peter died at Rome is probable. But it is certain that 
he was not the founder of the Church of Rome. The 
absence of an allusion to such a connection in St. Paul's 
Epistles is decisive. It is also certain that he was not 
Bishop of the Church of Rome or of any Church. The 
office of " Bishop " in the sense of a single officer presid- 
ing over the community (with perhaps the exception of 
Jerusalem) did not exist in any Church till the close of 
the first century. The word, as we have seen, was orig- 
inally identical with the word '' Presbyter." The al- 
leged succession of the early Roman Bishops is involved 
in contradictions which can only be explained on the 
supposition that there was then no fixed Episcopate. 
There is not only no shadow of an indication in the New 
Testament that the characteristics of Peter were to be- 
long to official successors, but for the first three centuries 
there is no indication, or at least no certain indication, 
that such a belief existed anywhere. It is an imagina- 
tion with no more foundation in fact than the supposi- 
tion that the characteristics of St. John descended to the 
Bishops of Ephesus. 

But, further, it is also a curious fact that by the the- 
ory of the Roman Church itself, it is not as Bishop of 
Rome that the Pope is supposed to acquire the religious 
sovereignty of the world. 

It is important to observe by what channel this is con- 
veyed. He becomes Bishop of Rome, as all others be- 
come Bishops, by regular consecration. He becomes 
Sovereign, as all others become Sovereigns, by a regular 
inauguration. But he becomes Pope, with whatever pe- 
culiar privileges that involves, by the election of the 
Cardinals ; and for this purpose he need not be a clergy- 
man at all. Those who suppose that he inherits the 



238 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

great powers of his office by the inheritance of an Epis- 
copal succession mistake the case. If other Bishops, as 
some believe, derive their powers from the Apostles by- 
virtue of an Apostolical succession, not so the Pope. He 
may, at the time of his election, be a layman, and, if 
duly elected, he may, as a layman, exercise, not indeed 
the functions of a Bishop, but the most significant func- 
tions which belong to a Pope. The Episcopal consecra- 
tion, indeed, must succeed as rapidly as is convenient. 
But the Pope after his mere election is completely in 
the possession of the headship of the Roman Catholic 
Church, even though it should so happen that the Epis- 
copal consecration never followed at all. 

In point of fact, the early Popes were never chosen 
from the Bishops, and usually not from the Presbyters, 
but from the Deacons : and the first who was chosen 
from the Episcopate was Formosus, Bishop of Portus, in 
891. Hildebrand ^ was not ordained priest till after his 
election. He cannot even exercise the right of a Bishop, 
unless by dispensation from himself, until he has taken 
" possession " of the sovereignty in the Lateran. Three 
Popes have occupied the chair of St. Peter as laymen : 
John XIX., or XX.,2 in 1024 ; Adrain V.,^ in 1276 ; 
Martin V. in 1417.^ Of these, the first reigned for some 
years, and was ordained or consecrated with the accus- 
tomed solemnities. The third was enthroned as a lay- 
man, and passed through the grades of deacon, priest, 
and bishop on successive days. The second reigned 
only for twenty-nine days, and died without taking holy 
orders. Yet in that time he had acquired all the pleni- 
tude of his supreme authority, and had promulgated de- 



1 Bona, i. 189. 2 pianck, iii. 370. 

3 Adrian Y. and Martin V. were "Cardinal Deacons." But this is an office 
which is held by laymen. 
* Fleury, xxi. 472. 



Chap. XI.] AS POPE. 239 

crees modifying the whole system of Papal elections 
which by his successors were held to be invested with all 
the sacredness of Pontifical utterances.^ Since the time 
of Urban VI., in 1378, the rule has been to restrict the 
office of Pope to the College of Cardinals. But this has 
no higher sanction than custom. As late as 1758, votes 
were given to one who was not a member of the Sacred 
College ; and the election of a layman even at this day, 
would be strictly canonical. If the lay element can thus 
without impropriety intrude itself into the very throne 
and centre of ecclesiastical authority, and that by the 
election of a body which is itself not necessarily clerical 
(for a cardinal is not of necessity in holy orders), and 
which till at least the last election was subject to lay in- 
fluences of the most powerful kind (for each of the three 
chief Catholic sovereigns had a veto on the appointment), 
it is clear that the language commonly held within the 
Koman Catholic and even Protestant Churches, both 
Episcopal and Presbyterian, against lay interference in 
spiritual matters, meets with a decisive check in an un- 
expected quarter. If the Pope himself may be a lay- 
man, and, as a layman, issue Pontifical decrees of the 
highest authoritj^ he is a witness against all who are dis- 
posed to confine the so-called spiritual powers of the 
Church to the clerical or Episcopal order. 

Here, in this crucial case, the necessity of choosing 
" the right man for the right place" overrides all other 
considerations ; and if it should so happen that the Col- 
lege of Cardinals became convinced that the interests of 
the world and of the Church were best served by their 
choosing a philosopher or a philanthropist, a lawyer or a 
warrior, to the Pontifical chair, there is nothing in the 

^ See the facts in Cartwright's Conclaves, pp. 164, 195. "Eo ipso sit Pontifex 
gummas totius Ecclesias, etsi forte id non exprimant electores." (Bellarmine, 
De Rom. Pont. ii. 22.) 



240 THE POPE. [Chap. XL 

constitution of the Roman see to forbid it. The electors 
of the chief Pontiff maybe laymen, — the sovereign of 
the Christian world may be a layhian. Whether we re- 
gard this as a relic of the ancient days of the Church, in 
which the laity w^ere supreme over the clergy, or as the 
ideal towards which the Church may be gradually tend- 
ing, it is equally a proof that thei'e is not, in the nat- 
ure of things or in the laws of Christendom, any such 
intrinsic distinction between the clergy and laity as to 
give to either an exclusive share in matters spiritual or 
temporal. 

Such being the mode by which the Pope, as such, is 
chosen, we next proceed to observe what are the func- 
tions which, as Pope, he is supposed to exercise. 

The word '' Pope " has in common parlance passed 

with us into a synonym for " oracle." "When we say 

that such a man is " a Pope in his own circle,'* 

As an oracle. • V, -i • if 5? 

or that " every man is a Pope to himselr, we 
mean that he is a person whose word must be taken at 
once on any subject on which he may choose to speak. 
There was, as it happens, such an oracle once believed 
to reside in the Vatican Hill — where now stands the 
Paj)al palace — the oracle of the god Faunus ; of whom 
the ancient Latins came to inquire in any difficulty, and 
received their reply in dreams or by strange voices. 
Such an oracle the Pope is, by a certain number of his 
followers, supposed to be. But this has only within the 
last few years become the doctrine of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church, and many of those who maintain it confine 
the oracular power within very narrow limits, which may 
be always narrowed further still. His utterances are to 
be depended upon only when they relate to matters of 
faith and morals, and then only when he speaks officially ; 
and as it will have always to be determined when it is 
that he speaks officially, and what matters are to be con- 



Chap. XL] AS AN ORACLE. 241 

sidered of faith, it is evident that his oracular power may 
be limited or expanded, exactly according to the will of 
the recipients. 1 In point of fact the amount of light 
which the Papal See has communicated to the world is 
not large, compared with what has been derived from 
other episcopal sees, or other royal thrones. There have 
been occupants of the Sees of Constantinople, Alexandria, 
and Canterbury, who have produced more effect on the 
mind of Christendom b}^ their utterances than any of 
the Popes.2 Even in the most solemn Papal declara- 
tions, such as annexing South America to Spain, or de- 
termining the canonization of particular saints, or even 
in issuing such a decree as that concerning the Immac- 
ulate Conception, the Popes have acted rather as the 
mouthpieces of others, or judges of a tribunal, than on 
their own individual responsibility. Canonizations, at 
least in theory, ^are the result of a regular trial. The 
Pope is not supposed to venture to declare any one a 
canonized saint until he has been entreated, " urgently, 
more urgently, most urgently " Qlnstanter^ instantmSy 
instantissirne}, by those who have heard the Devil's as 
well as the saint's advocate. The declaration of the re- 
cent dogmas of 1851 and 1870 professed to be the sum- 
ming up of a long previous agitation, and the Pope did 
not issue it till he had asked the opinions of all the 
Bishops. 

It is the object of these remarks to state facts, not to 
discuss doctrines. But the fact is well worth observing, 
— first, because it shows how wide and deep is the divi- 

1 A curious trace of the individual character of the Pope b'eing maintained 
rather than his official character, is that he signs his Bulls not by his official but 
his personal name, in the barbarous form, Placet Joannes. — Wiseman's Four 
Popes, 223. 

2 See Dr. ISTewman's Apologia, p. 407. " The see of Rome possessed no great 
mind in the whole period of persecution. Afterwards for a long while it had 
not a shigle doctor to show. The great luminary of the western world is St. 
Augustine: he, no infallible teacher, has formed the intellect of Europe." 

18 



242 THE POPE. [Chap. XI 

sion in the Roman Catholic Church on the yery question 
which, more than any other, distinguishes it from other 
Churches ; and, secondly, because it shows how small an 
amount of certainty or security is added to any one's 
belief by resting it on the oracular power of the Pope. 
On most of the great questions which agitate men's 
minds at present, on Biblical criticism, on the authorship 
of the Sacred Books, on the duration of future punish- 
ment, he has not pronounced any opinion at all ; and on 
others, such as the relations of Church and State, of the 
condition of the working classes, of slavery, and the like, 
the opinions he has expressed are either so ambiguous, or 
so contradictory, that th'^y are interpreted in exactly op- 
posite senses by the prelates in Italy and the prelates in 
Ireland. Even if it were conceded that such an oracle 
exists at Rome, there still is no certainty either as to its 
jurisdiction or its meaning. Most of those who have 
studied its utterances, however they may respect its ven- 
erable antiquity and honor its occasional wisdom, will 
carry away as their chief impression its variations and its 
failures. 

But turning from this much disputed attribute of the 
Pope, there is no question in his own communion, there 
is not much question out of it, that he is or till very 
lately was one of the chief rulers of Christendom. Tliis, 
rather than his oracular power, is the characteristic of 
his office brought out by Gregory VII. and Innocent III. 
And this, like so much which we have noticed, is a relic 
of a state of things that has passed away. It is part of 
the general framework of mediaeval Christendom. There 
were only two potentates of the first magnitude at that 
time — the Pope and the Emperor. The kings were in 
theory as much subject to one as to the other. The 
Pope and the Emperor, though with inextricable con- 
fusion in their mutual relations, were cast as it were in 



Chap. XI.] AS CHIEF RULEE. 243 

the same mould. Dante could no more have imagined 
the Emperor ceasing than the Pope. Indeed he would 
have sooner spared the Pope than the Emperor. He 
sees no Pope (except St. Peter) in paradise — no Em- 
peror in hell. When the Emperor fell in the fall of the 
Suabian dynasty, the Pope, instead of gaining by the 
destruction of his ancient enemy, was weakened also. 
Tliey were twin brothers. They were Siamese twins. 
The death of the one involves the ultimate death of the 
other, at least in the aspect in which they are correlative. 
No king, except the German princes, is now dependent 
on the Emperor of Germany. No king is now dependent 
on the Pope of Rome. The monarchy of Christendom 
has ceased, for all practical purposes, as certainly as the 
monarchy of ancient Rome ceased after the expulsion of 
the Tarquins. But when the kings were driven out from 
ancient Rome, there was still a king kept up in name to 
perform the grand ceremonial offices which no one but a 
person having the name of " king " or " Rex " could dis- 
charge. The " Rex sacrificulus "^ took precedence of all 
the other functionaries, religious or secular, in the old 
Roman constitution, down to the time of Theodosius. 
He lived on the Via Sacra, near the palace of the Ponti- 
fex Maximus. He was the ghost of the deceased Roman 
kingdom, just as the Pope is the ghost of the deceased 
Roman Empire. Such as he was in regard to the ex- 
ternal constitution of the Roman kingdom, such the Pope 
is in regard to the external constitution of Western 
Christendom. He takes precedence still of all the mon- 
archs of Catholic Europe. He always dines alone, lest 
a question of precedence should ever arise. The Papal 
Nuncio is still the head of the diplomatic body in every 

1 He lived on the hill called " Velia." Next to him came the Flamen, who 
lived in the Flaminian meadows ; next the Pontifex Maximus, who lived by the 
Temple of Vesta. 



244 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

Catholic country. Even the Protestant sovereigns, on re- 
ceiving a congratulatory address from that body in France 
or Spain, must receive it from the lips of the Nuncio. 
The Pope's rank is thus an interesting and venerable 
monument of an extinct world. His outward magnifi- 
cence compared with his inward weakness is one of the 
most frequently noted marks of his position in the world. 

It is in this capacity that he was seen by Bunyan, in 
the cave where lay the giants Pope and Pagan — de- 
crepit, aged, mumbling. It has been said that Peter has 
no gray hairs. This is not the verdict of history. His 
hairs are very gray ; he is not what he once was. He 
exhibits the vicissitudes of history to an extent almost 
beyond that of any other sovereign. 

V. This leads us to yet one more attribute of the 
Pope. Even those who entirely repudiate his authority 
The Pope as must still regard him as the chief ecclesiastic of 
ecclesiastic. Christendom. If there is such a thing as a 
body of clergy at all, the Bishop of Rome is certainly the 
head of the profession. In him we see the pretensions, 
the merits, the demerits of the clerical office in the most 
complete, perhaps in the most exaggerated, form. His 
oracular power is only, to a certain extent, claimed by 
the rest of the clergy. It may not be, perhaps, avowed 
by any other clergyman, Roman Catholic or Protestant, 
often as they may think it or imply it, that they are in- 
fallible, or that they can add, by their own mere motion, 
new articles of faith. But wherever such claims exist, 
the office of the Pope is an excellent field in which to 
discuss the matter. The same reasons which convince us 
that the Pope is not infallible may convince us of the 
same defect in regard to the less dignified ecclesiastics. 
The advantages which the clerical order have conferred 
on Christendom, and the disadvantages, are also well seen 
in the history of the Popes, on a large scale. 



Chap. XI.] AS THE CHIEF ECCLESIASTIC. 245 

Again, the Pope well exemplifies the true nature of 
the much confused terms, " spiritual and temporal pow- 
er." His spiritual power — that is, his moral and intel- 
lectual power over the minds and consciences of men — 
is very small. Even amongst Roman Catholics, there 
are very few who really believe anything the more be- 
cause the Pope says so ; and the Popes who have been 
authors of eminence are very few and far between. 
Probably few sees, as we have said, in Christendom 
have really contributed so little through their personal 
occupants to the light of the world. No Pope has ever 
exercised the same real amount of spiritual influence as 
Augustine, or Aquinas, or Thomas a Kempis, or Luther, 
or Erasmus, or Shakespeare, or Loyola, or Hegel, or 
Ewald. 

But his secular power over ecclesiastics is very consid- 
erable. He in many instances controls their temporal po- 
sitions. His tribunals, whatever may be their uncertainty 
and caprice, compared to an English court of justice, are 
still, to the ecclesiastical world of Roman Catholic Chris- 
tendom, what the Supreme Court of Appeal is to the 
Church of England. 

It is against the exercise of this power that Henry H. 
in England, and St. Louis ^ in France, and Santa Rosa 
in Piedmont, contended. It is, as a protection against 
it, that the state in France, Austria, Spain, Italy, Por- 
tugal, and virtually in Prussia, has retained the nomina- 
tion of the bishops of those countries in its own hands, 
and fenced itself about with concordats and treaties, 
against the intrusion of so formidable a rival. By this 
protection the Abbot of Monte Casino, under the present 
kingdom of Italy, enjoys a freedom which he with diffi- 
culty maintained against the Pope, and the Archbishop 
of Paris, almost until he fell a victim to the fanaticism 

1 See Lanfrey's Histoire Politique des Papes, p. 278. 



246 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

of the Parisian populace, was upheld by the Emperor of 
the French. 

VI. It has been the purpose of these remarks to con- 
fine them as closely as jDossible to facts acknowledged by 
all. 

One remaining fact, however, also is certain, that there 
is no personage in the world whose office provokes such 
His mixed widely different sentiments as that of the Pope. 

character. J^ ^^^ ^^-^ ^^,^^ p-^g j^^ ^^^ ^^^^ g- j^g ^^ j^jg 

face — one malignant, the other benevolent. Once, 
and once only, the malignant side appeared in a photo- 
graph, which was immediately suppressed by the police. 
Whether this is true or not, it is no unapt likeness of 
the opposite physiognomy which the Papal office pre- 
sents to the two sides of the Christian world. To the 
one he appears as the Vicar of Christ, to the other as 
Antichrist ; to the one as the chief minister and repre- 
sentative of the Holy and the Just, to the other as his 
chief enemy. Nor is this diversity of aspect divided ex- 
actly according to the division of the ancient and modern 
churches. There have been members of the Roman 
Church, like Petrarch, who have seen in the Papal city a 
likeness of Babylon, as clearly as Luther or Knox. There 
have been Protestants, like Arnold and Guizot, who have 
recognized in certain phases of the Papacy a beneficence 
of action and a loftiness of design, as clearly as Bossuet 
and De Maistre. Nay, even to the same mind, at the 
same time, the office has alternately presented both as- 
pects, as it did to Dante. And again, the Pope, who, to 
most Protestants, appears as the representative of all 
that is retrograde, dogmatic, and superstitious, appears 
in the eyes of the Eastern Church as the first Rational- 
ist, the first Reformer, the first founder of private judg- 
ment and endless schism. 

This diversity of sentiment is certainly not the least 



Chap. XL] HIS MIXED CHARACTER. 247 

instructive of the characteristics of the Papal office. 
Many causes may have contributed towards it, but the 
main and simple cause is this, — that the Papal office, 
like many human institutions, is a mixture of much good 
and much evil ; stained with many crimes, adorned with 
many virtues ; with many peculiar temptations, with 
many precious opportunities ; to be judged calmly, dis- 
passionately, charitably, thoughtfully, by all who come 
across it. So judged, its past history will become more 
intelligible and more edifying ; so judging, we may, per- 
haps, arrive hereafter, at some forecast of what may be 
its Future in the present and coming movements of the 
world. 

It once chanced that an English traveller, in a long 
evening spent on the heights of Monte Casino, was con- 
versing with one of the charming inmates of the ancient 
home of St. Benedict, who was hiuiself, like most of his 
order in Italy, opposed to the temporal power of the 
Pope. The Protestant Englishman ventured to ask the 
liberal-minded Catholic : " How do you forecast the pos- 
sibility of the accomplishment of your wishes in the face 
of the steadfast opposition of the reigning pontiff and the 
long traditional policy of the Roman Court ? " He re- 
plied, " I console myself by looking back at the history 
of the Papacy. I remember that St. Peter came to Rome 
a humble fisherman, w^ithout power, without learning, 
with no weapon but simple faith and his life in his 
hand. I remember next that when the barbarians came 
in, and the European monarchies were founded, there 
came a man as unlike to St. Peter as can possibly be con- 
ceived — of boundless ambition, of iron will — Hilde- 
brand, who alone was able to cope with the difficulties of 
his situation. Then came the Renaissance, classic arts, 
pagan literature ; and there arose in the midst of them 
Leo X., as their natural patron, as unlike to Hildebrand 



248 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

as Hilclebrand to St. Peter. Then came the shock of the 
Reformation — the panic, the alarm, the reaction — the 
]Muses ^ere banished, the classic luxury was abolished, 
and the very reverse of Leo X. appeared in the austere 
Puritan, Pius Y. And now we have Pius IX. .... 
And in twenty or a hundred years we may have a new 
Pope, as unlike to Pius IX. as Pius IX. is unlike to Pius 
v., as Pius V. was unlike to Leo X., as Leo X. was un- 
like to Hildebrand, as all were unlike to St. Peter ; and 
on this I rest my hope of the ultimate conciliation of 
Eome and Italy, of Catholicism and freedom." 

Such, or nearly such, was the consolation administered 
to himself bv the o-enial historian of Monte Casino : and 
such, taken with a wider range, is the consolation which 
we may minister to ourselves in viewing the changes 
of an institntion which, with all its failings, cannot but 
command a large share of religious and philanthropic 
interest. It is always within the bounds of hope, that 
a single individual, fully equal to the emergency, who 
should by chance or Providence find himself in that (or 
any like) exalted seat, might work wonders — wonders 
which, humanl}' speaking, could not be worked, even by 
a man of equal powers, in a situation less commanding. 
There is a mediaeval tale which has even some founda- 
tion in fact.^ that a certain Pope was once accused be- 
fore a General Council on the charge of heresy. * He 
was condennied to be burned : but it was found that the 
sentence could not be legally carried into execution but 
with the consent of the Pope himself. Tlie assembled 
Fathers went to the Pope — venerunt ad Papam — and 
presented their humble petition — et dixerunt^ Papa, 
jiidica te eremari ; and the Pope was moved to pity for 

1 The storv is founded on the deposition of Gregory Y. In the real story the 
Council was not a General, but a Provincial Council ; the Pope's crime was not 
heresy, but simony : the sentence pronounced was not death, but deposition. 



Chap. XL] THE POPE. 249 

the inexti'icable dilemma in which the Fathers were 
placed. He consented to their prayer. He pronounced 
judgment on himself — et dixit ^Jiidico^ me cremari ; and 
his sentence "was carried into effect — et crematus est 
— and then in reverential gratitude for so heroic an act 
of self-denial he was canonized — et postea veneratus pro 
saneto. Such, although with a more cheerful issue, 
might be the solution of the entanglement of the Church 
by some future Pope. We have but to imagine a man 
of ordinary courage, common sense, honesty, and dis- 
cernment — a man who should have the grace to perceive 
that the highest honor which he could confer on the 
highest seat in the Christian hierarcy, and the highest 
service he could render to the Christian religion, would 
be from that lofty eminence to speak out to the whole 
world the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the 
truth. Such an one, regarding only the facts of history, 
but in the plenitude of authority which he would have 
inherited, and '' speaking ex cathedra^ in discharge of his 
office of pastor and doctor of all Christians," might sol- 
emnly pronounce that he, his predecessors, and his suc- 
cessors, were fallible, personally and officially, and might 
err, as they have erred again and again, both in faith 
and morals. By so doing he would not have contradicted 
the decree of infallibility, more than that decree contra- 
dicts the decrees of previous councils and the declarations 
of previous Popes. By so doing he would incur insult, 
obloquy, perhaps death. But like the legendary Pope of 
whom we have spoken, he would have deserved the crown 
of sanctity, for he would have shown that quality which 
above all others belongs to saints in the true sense of the 
word. He would have risen above the temptations of 
his situation, his order, his office ; he would have relieved 
the Catholic Church from that which its truest friends 
feel to be an intolerable incubus, and restored it to hght 
and freedom. 



250 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

NOTE. 

THE pope's posture IN THE COMMUNION. 

It is one of the most curious circumstances of the curious 
practice of the Pope's sitting at the Communion, that amongst 
Roman Catholics themselves there should be not only the most 
conflicting evidence as to the fact, but even entire ignorance as 
to the practice ever having existed. In the leading Roman 
Catholic journal ^ the statement that such a practice prevailed 
"was asserted to be " the purest romance ; " and though this ex- 
pression was afterwards courteously withdrawn, yet the fact 
was still denied, and it appeared that there were even well-in- 
structed Roman Catholics who had never heard of its existence. 
This obscurity on the matter may perhaps show that it is re- 
garded as of more importance than would as first sight appear. 

1. The Roman Liturgies themselves have no express state- 
ment on the subject. They all agree in directing that the Pope 
retires to his lofty seat — '•' ad sedem eminentem " — behind the 
altar, and there remains. Some of them add that he " stands " 
waiting for the sub-deacon to approach with the sacred elements ; 
but beyond this, with the exceptions hereafter to be noticed, 
there is no order given. 

2. The earliest indication of the Pope's position to which a 
reference is found is in St. Bonaventura (1221-1274), on Psalm 
xxi. : " Papa quando sumit corpus Christi in missa solemni, 
sumit omnibus videntibus, nam, sedens in cathedra, se convertit 
ad populum " (0pp. vol. i. pp. Ill, 112); and that this was 
understood to mean that he communicated sitting appears from 
the marginal note of the edition of Bonaventura published by 
order of Sixtus V. (1230-1296), " Papa quare communicet 
sedens." 

Durandus, in his "Rationale" (iv. §§ 4, 5, p. 203), and the 

"Liber Sacrarum Cserimoniarum " (p. 102), use nearly the 

same words : " Ascendens ad sedem eminentem ibi communicat." 

This expression, though it would suggest that the Pope was 

1 Dublin Review, 1869. 



Chap. XL] HIS POSTURE IN THE COMMUNION. 251 

seated, does not of necessity imply it. But the " Liber Sacrarum 
Caerimoniarum," although at Christmas (p. 133) it describes the 
Pope immediately after his ascension of the chair as " ibi stans," 
when it speaks of Easter (p. 176) expressly mentions the pos- 
ture of sitting as at least permissible. " Communione facta, 
Papa surgit, si communicando sedehit^ 

Cardinal Bona ("Rev. Lit." ii. c. 17, 88; iii. p. 395) — than 
whom there is no higher authority — writes : " Summus Ponti- 
fex cum solemniter celebrat sedens communit hoc modo." ^ 

Martene (1654-1789)," De Ant. Eccl. Rit." i. 4, 10, p. 421, 
states that " Romas summus Pontifex celebrans in sua sede con- 
sistens seipsum communicabat. Postea accedebant episcopi et 
presbyteri ut a pontifice communionem accipiant, episcopi qui- 
dem stantes ad sedem pontificis, presbyteri vero ad altare geni- 
bus flexis." 

The obvious meaning of this passage is that the Pope remains 
(" consistens ") ^ in his place, sitting; whilst the other clergy, 
according to their ranks, assume the different postures described, 
the bishops standing, the presbyters kneeling. And this is the 
view taken of it by Moroni, the chamberlain and intimate friend 
of the late Pope Gregory XVI., who cites these words as show- 
ing "che in Roma il Papa communicavasi sedendo nelsuo trono'' 
(Dizionario, vol. xv. p. 126.) 

It is hardly necessary to confirm these high Roman author- 
ities by the testimony of Protestant Ritualists. But that it was 
the received opinion amongst such writers that the Pope sits 
appears from the unhesitating assertions to this effect by Bing- 
ham, Neale, and Maskell. 

3. To these great liturgical authorities on the theory of the 
Papal posture may be added, besides Moroni (whose words just 
cited may be taken as a testimony to the practice of Gregory 
XVL), the following witnesses to the usage of modern times. 

The Rev. J. E. Eustace, the well-known Roman Catholic 
traveller through Italy, says : " When the Pope is seated, the 

1 A question has been raised as to tlie authority on which the Cardinal puts 
forth his statement. But this does not touch the authorit}^ of the Cardinal him- 
self. 

2 The word itself means simply "keeping his place," 



252 THE POPE. [Chap.- XI. 

two deacons bring the holy sacrament, which he first reveres 
humbly on his knees, and then receives in a sitting posture.'* 
Eustace mentions the practice with some repugnance, and adds : 
" Benedict XIII. could never be prevailed upon to conform to 
it, but alwaj^s remained standing at the altar, according to the 
usual practice." (Eustace's "Travels," ii. 170.) 

Archbishop Gerbet, who has the credit of having instigated 
the recent " Syllabus," and whose work on " Rome Chretienne," 
is expressly intended as a guide to the antiquities of Christian 
Rome, writes as follows : — 

" Le Pape descend de I'autel, traverse le sanctuaire et monte 
au siege pontifical. La, a demi assis, quoique incline par re- 
spect, il communie^' etc. " L' attitude du Pape et cette commun- 
ion multiple .... retracent lapremiere communion des Apotres 
assis a la table du Sauveur." (" Rome Chretienne," ii. 86, 87.) 

The passage is the more interesting as Gerbet's reference to 
the original attitude shows his belief that it was the retention of 
the primitive practice. 

4. This mass of testimony might be thought sufiicient to es- 
tablish so simple a fact. But it will be observed that there is 
a slight wavering in the statement of Martene and of Gerbet ; 
and this variation is confirmed by the silence or by the express 
contradiction of other authorities, not indeed so high, but still of 
considerable weight. 

It is stated that in the " Ordo " of Urban YIIL, after the 
adoration of the sacred elements the Pope immediately rises, 
" statim surgit ; " and that Crispus, who was sub-deacon to Clem- 
ent XI., says, " in cathedra stans et veluti erectus in cruce san- 
guinem sugit." These same authorities, with Catalani, also 
state that afte?^ the communion " the Pope takes his mitre and 
sits down," " sumpta mitra sedet," or " accipit mitram et se- 
dens," etc. It is also said to be mentioned as a peculiarity that 
on Easter Day, 1481, Sixtus IV. was obliged by infirmity to sit 
down during the communion at High Mass, which, if so be, 
would imply that it was not the usual posture. 

Dr. Bagge (in his book on the Pontifical Mass, 1840) states 
that " the Pope does not receive sitting, as Eustace and others 



Chap. XL] HIS POSTURE IN THE COMMUNION. 253 

assert. When the snb-deacon has reached the throne the Pope 
adores the Sacred Host, the cardinal-deacon then takes the 

chalice and shows it to the Pope and the people It is 

carried from the deacon to the Pope, who, having adored, re- 
mains standing." ^ 

5. Between these contradictory statements there is a middle 
view, which probably contains the solution of the enigma, and is 
to be found in the statements of two authorities, which for this 
reason are reserved for the conclusion. 

The first is Rocca (1545-1620), who "was chosen corrector 
of the press of the Sixtine Bible, and is said to have excelled 
all others in ecclesiastical knowledge ; and who, on account of 
his perfect acquaintance with rubrics and the Liturgies, was ap- 
pointed Apostolic Commentator by Pope Clement VIII." '^ 

He writes as follows (in his " Thesaurus Rituum," in the 
" Commentarium de Sacra S. Pontificis communione," 20) : 
Dicitur autem Summus Pontifex sedere dum communicat. vel 
quia ipse antiquitus in communicando sedehat^ vel quia sedentis 
instar communicahat, sicuf prcesens in tempus Jieri solet. Sum- 
mus namque Pontifex ad solium, stans non sedens, ad majorem 
venerationem repraesentandam, ipsi tamen solio, populo universo 
spectante, innixus, et incurvus, quasi sedens communicat, Chris- 
tum Dominum cruci affixum, in eaque quodam modo reclinan- 
tem repraesentaus." 

The other is Pope Benedict XIV. (1740-1758), who thus 
writes in his treatise " De Sacrosancto Missae Sacrificio," lib. ii. 
c. 21, § 7 : " Illud autem praetermitti non potest, Romanos quos- 
dam Pontifices in solemni Missa in solio sedenfes, facie ad pop- 
ulum conversa, Eucharistiam sumere consuevisse, ut Christi 
Passio et Mors experimeretur, qui pro palam passus et mortuus 
est in conspectu omnium, quotquot nefariee Crucifixioui adfuere 
tamen (?) vero Summum Pontificem, cum solemnem celebrat 
Missam, se aliosque communicare facie quidem ad populum 

1 These quotations, which I have not been able to verify, are taken from the 
statements of the writer in the Dublin Revieiv, April, 1869, pp. 514, 515. 

2 Dublin Review, April, 1869, p. 516. The same passage extracts from the 
sentence quoted in the text, ' Summus Pontifex ad solium stans, non sedens," 
but omits all that precedes and all that follows. 



254 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

conversa, sed pedibus stantem in solio, corpore tamen inclinato, 

cum et ipse suscipit, aliisqiie prjebet Eucharistiam Hinc 

est quaraobrem Pontifex populo, procul et exadverso in faciem 
eum adspicienti, videatur sedens communicare, ut bene observa- 
bat post S. Bonaventuram Rocca de solemni communione 
Summi Pontificis et Casalius de veteribus Sacris Cliristianorum 
Ritibus, cap. 81, p. 333, ed. Rom. 1647." 

From these two statements it appears that the Popes in an- 
cient times sat whilst communicating, but that from the close of 
the sixteenth century they usually stood in a^ leaning or half- 
sitting posture. 

To these must be added a further statement of Pope Benedict 
XIV., in a letter addressed in 1757 to the Master of the Pontif- 
ical Ceremonies, on the general question of the lawfulness, un- 
der certain circumstances, of celebrating Mass in a sitting post- 
ure. 

The general cases which raise the .question are of gout and 
the like ; but in the course of the discussion the Pope describes 
some particulars respecting his predecessors bearing on the pres- 
ent subject. 

Pius III. was elected to the Pontificate (in 1503) Avhen he 
was still only a deacon. He was ordained priest on the 1st of 
October, and on the 8th of October he himself celebrated Mass 
as Pope. On both of these occasions (being troubled by an 
ulcer in the leg) he sat during the whole ceremony ; a seat was 
solemnly prepared, in which he was to sit, and the altar ar- 
ranged in the form of a long table, under which he might stretch 
his legs ("' sedem in qua sedens extensis cruribus ordinaretur, 
et mensam longam pro altari ut pedes subtus extendi possent "). 
It also appears that in the Papal chapel it is considered gener- 
ally that the Pope has liberty to sit whilst he administers the 
elements to his court. It appears, further, that (also without 
any reference to special cases) the Pope sits during the cere- 
mony of his ordination as sub-deacon, deacon, and presbyter, if 
he has been elected to the Pontificate before such ordination ; 
and that the fact of this posture during the Holy Communion 
was considered by Benedict XIV. to cover the question gener- 



Chap. XL] HIS POSTURE IN THE COMMUNION. 255 

ally. It will be sufficient to quote the passage which relates to 
the ordination of a Pope as priest. " In collatione sacerdotii 
sedens Poniifex manuum impositionem, olei sancti, quod catechu- 
menorum dicitur, unctionem, calicem cum vino et aqua, et pati- 
nam cum liostia, recipit. Quae omnia luculenter ostendunt haud 
inconveniens esse sedere Pontijicem in functionihus sacratis- 
simis, utque eo ipso Missam totam a sedente posse celebrari, 
frmsertim si pedibus dehilitatis insistere non valeatr He con- 
cludes with this pertinent address on his own behalf to the 
Master of the Ceremonies : " Et, siquidem sedentes missam cele- 
brare statuimus, tuum erit pra3parare mensam altaris cum conse- 
crato lapide," etc., " vacuumque subtus altare spatium relinqua- 
turextendendis pedibus idoneum ; confidentes singula dexteritati 
tuse singular! perficienda, apostolicam tibi benedictionem per- 
amanter impertimur." ^ 

6. The conclusion, therefore, of the whole matter must be 
this. In early times, probably down to the reign of Sixtus V. 
(as indicated in the marginal note on St. Bonaventura), the 
position of the Pope was sitting, as a venerable relic of primitive 
ages. Gradually, as appears from the words of Eustace, the 
value of this tenacious and interesting adherence to the ancient 
usage was depreciated from its apparent variation from the gen- 
eral sentiment, as expressed in the standing posture of priests 
and the kneeling attitude of the communicants, and it would 
seem that before the end of the sixteenth century the custom 
had been in part abandoned. But with that remarkable ten- 

1 0pp. xvii. 474, 489. It will be observed that the acceptance of the chalice 
and paten by the Pope at his ordinations is not of itself the Communion. It 
must be further noticed that the Pope in thus writing makes this qualification : 
" Dum RomanusPontifexsolemnitercelebrat, .... recipit sacram Eucharistiam 
sub speciebus panis etvini stans, neque sedens communicat, prout per errorem 
scripserunt aliqui, viderique potest tom. ii. Tract Nostri de Sac. Missce, sect, i, 
c. 20, § 1." It is a curious example of what maybe called "the audacity" 
ivhich sometimes characterizes expressions of Pontifical opinion, that the very 
passage to which Benedict XIV., in the last year of his life, thus referred to as 
"an erroneous statement" of the Pope's "sitting at the Communion," contains 
his own assertion that "some of the Roman Pontiffs in solemn mass were accus- 
tomed to receive the Eucharist sitting." In fact, it is difficult to reconcile the 
statement in the letter just quoted with the passages which are quoted in the 
text. 



256 THE POPE. [Chap. XT. 

acity of ecclesiastical usages, which retains particles of such 
usages when, the larger part has disappeared, the ancient pos- 
ture was not wholly given up. As the wafer and the chalice 
are but minute fragments of the ancient Supper — as the stand- 
ing posture of the priests is a remnant of the standing posture 
of devotion through the whole Christian Church — as the stand- 
ing posture of the English clergyman during part of the Com- 
munion Service is a remnant of the standing posture of the 
Catholic clergy through the whole of it — as the sitting posture 
of the earlier Popes was a remnant of the sitting or recumbent 
posture of the primitive Christian days — so the partial atti- 
tude of the present Popes is a remnant of the sitting posture of 
their predecessors. It is a compromise between the ancient his- 
torical usage and modern decorum. The Pope's attitude, so we 
gather from Rocca and Benedict XIV., and also from Arch- 
bishop Gerbet, is neither of standing nor of sitting. He goes 
to his lofty chair, he stands till the sub-deacon comes, he bows 
himself down in adoration as the Host approaches. Thus far 
all are agreed, though it is evident that at a distance any one 
of those postures might be taken, as it has by some spectators, 
for the posture at the act of communion. But in the act of 
communion, as far as we can gather from the chief authorities, 
he is in his chair, facing the people, leaning against the back of 
the chair, so as not* to abandon entirely the attitude of sitting — 
sufficiently erect to give the appearance of standing, with his 
head and body bent down to express the reverence due to the 
sacred elements. This complex attitude would account for the 
contradictions of eye-witnesses, and the difficulty of making so 
peculiar a compromise would perhaps cause a variation in the 
posture of particular Popes, or even of the same Pope on par- 
ticular occasions. What to one spectator would seem standing, 
to another would seem sitting, and to another might seem kneel- 
ing. 

This endeavor to combine a prescribed attitude either with 
convenience or with a change of sentiment is not uncommon. ' 
One parallel instance has been often adduced in the case of the 
Popes themselves. In the great procession on Corpus Christi 
Day, when the Pope is carried in a palanquin round the Piazza 



Chap. XL] HIS POSTUKE IN THE COMMUNION. 257 

of St. Peter, it is generally believed that, whilst he appears to 
be in a kneeling attitude, the cushions and furniture of the pal- 
anquin are so arranged as to enable him to bear the fatigue of 
the ceremony by sitting, whilst to the spectators he appears to be 
kneeling.^ Another parallel is to be found from another point 
of view, in one of the few other instances in which the posture 
of sitting has been retained, or rather adopted, namely in the 
Presbyterian Church of Scotland. There the attitude of sitting 
was rigidly prescribed. But, if we may trust an account of the 
Scottish Sacrament, believed to be as accurate as it is poetic, 
the posture of the devout Presbyterian peasant as nearly as 
possible corresponds to that which Rocca, Gerbet, and Benedict 
XIV. give of the Pope's present attitude — "innixus," "incur- 
vus inclinato corpore," " a demi assis," " une profonde inclina- 
tion de corps : " — 

"There they sit ... . 
. . . . In reverence meet 
Many an eye to heaven is lifted, 

Meek and very lowly. 
Souls bowed down with reverent fear, 
Hoary-headed elders moving, 
Bear the hallowed bread and wine, 
While devoutly still the people 
Low in prayer bow the head." 2 

It is interesting to observe this ancient usage becoming small 
by degrees and beautifully less, yet still not entirely extin- 
guished : reduced from recumbency to sitting, from the sitting of 
all to the sitting of a single person, from the sitting of a single 
person to the doubtful reminiscence of his sitting, by a posture 
half-sitting, half-standing. 

The compromise of the Pope's actual posture is a character- 
istic specimen of that " singular dexterity " which Benedict 
XIV. attributes to his Master of the Ceremonies, and which 
has so often marked the proceedings of the Poman court. To 
have devised a posture by which, as on the festival of Corpus 
Christi, the Pope can at once sit and kneel ; or — as in the cases 

1 See the minute account of an eye-witness in 1830 in Crabbe Robinson's 
Diary, ii. 469. 

2 Kilmahoe; and other Poems. By J. C Shairp. 

10 



258 THE POPE. [Chap. XI. 

mentioned by Pope Benedict XIV. — an arrangement by which 
the Pope, whilst sitting, can " stretch his legs in the vacant space 
under the altar " ; or, as in the case we have been considering, 
a position of standing so as to give the appearance of sitting, 
and sitting so as to give the appearance of standing — is a mi- 
nute example of the subtle genius of the institution of the Pa- 
pacy. As the practice itself is a straw, indicating the move- 
ment of primitive antiquity, so the modern compromise is a 
straw, indicating the movement of the Roman Church in later 
times. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE LITANY. 

The Litany is one of the most popular parts of the 
English Prayer Book. It is not one of the most ancient 
parts, but it is sufficiently ancient to demand an inquiry 
into its peculiarities, and its peculiarities are sufficiently 
marked to demand a statement. 

I. First, as to its origin. It is one of the parts of the 
Prayer Book which has its origin in a time neither prim- 
itive nor reformed. For four hundred years there were 
no prayers of this special kind in the Christian Church ; 
nor, again, in the Reformed Church were any prayers 
like it introduced afresh. It sprang from an age gloomy 
with disaster and superstition, when heathenism was still 
struggling with Christianity ; when Christianity was dis- 
figured by fierce conflicts within the Church ; when the 
Roman Empire was tottering to its ruin ; when the last 
great luminary of the Church — Augustine — had just 
passed away, amidst the forebodings of universal de- 
struction. It was occasioned also by a combination of 
circumstances of the most peculiar character. The gen- 
eral disorder of the time was aggravated by an unusual 
train of calamities. Besides the ruin of society, attend- 
ant on the invasion of the barbarians, there came a suc- 
cession of droughts, pestilences, and earthquakes, which 
seemed to keep pace with the throes of the moral world. 
Of all these horrors, France was the centre. On one of 
these occasions, when the people had been hoping that, 
with the Easter festival, some respite would come, a sud- 



260 THE LITANY. [Chap. XII. 

den earthquake shook the church at Vienne, on the 
Rhone. It was on Easter eve ; the congregation rushed 
out ; the bishop of the city (Mamertus) was left alone 
before the altar. On that terrible night he formed a 
resolution of inventing a new form, as he hoped, of 
drawing down the mercy of God. He determined, that 
in the three days before Ascension day there should be 
a long procession to the nearest churches in the neigh- 
borhood. From Vienne the custom spread. Amongst 
the vine-clad mountains, the extinct volcanoes of Au- 
vergne, the practice was taken up with renewed fervor. 
From town to town it ran through France ; it seemed 
to be a new vent for a hitherto pent-up devotion — a 
new spell for chasing away the evils of mankind. Such 
was the first Litany — a popular supplication, sung or 
shouted, not within the walls of any consecrated building, 
but by wild, excited multitudes, following ea'ch other in 
long files, through street and field, over hill and valley, as 
if to bid nature join in the depth of their contrition. It 
was, in short, what we should call a revival.-^ 

It is only by an effort that we can trace the identity of 
a modern Litany with those strange and moving scenes. 
Our attention may, however, be well called to the con- 
trast, for various reasons. 

1. We do well to remember that a good custom does not 
lose its goodness, because it arose in a bad time, in a cor- 
rupt age, in a barbarous country. Out of such 
dark beginnings have sprung some of our best 

1 Sidonius Apollinaris, i. 7; Gregory of Tours {Hist. Franc, ii. 6. 34), A. D. 
447. There were some earlier and some later developments of this practice, but 
this seems the most authentic statement of their first beginning. The brief 
form of " Kyrie Eleeson " had existed before. It first occurs in the heathen 
worship. "When we call upon God, we say of him Kvpte eAejjo-ov." (Arrian, 
Comment, de Ej^ist. Disput. ii. c. 7.) The Litany for St. Mark's Day was in- 
stituted A. D. 590 by Gregory the Great, partly to avert a pestilence, partly 
as a substitute for a procession which was held b}- the ancient Romans to pro- 
pitiate the goddess Robigo, or Mildew. 



Chap. XII.] ITS ORIGIN. 261 

institutions. In order for a practice or a doctrine to bear 
good Christian fruit, we need not demand that its first 
origin should be primitive, or Protestant, or civilized ; it 
is enough that it shotild be good in itself and productive 
of good effects. • 

2. Again, it is well to remember that the goodness of 
a thing depends not on its outward form, but on its in- 
ward spirit. The very word " Litany," in its first origin, 
included long processions, marches to and fro, cries and 
screams, which have now disappeared almost everywhere 
from public devotions, even in the Roman Catholic 
Church. Those who established it would not have imag- 
ined that a Litany without these accompaniments could 
have any efficacy whatever. We know now that the ac- 
companiments were mere accidents, and that the sub- 
stance has continued. What has happened in the Litany 
has occurred again and again with every part of our eccle- 
siastical system. Always the form and the letter are 
perishing ; always there will be some who think that the 
form and the letter are the thing itself ; generally in the 
Christian Church there is enough vitality to keep the 
spirit, though the form is changed ; generally, we trust, 
as in the Litany, so elsewhere, there will be found men 
wise enough and bold enough to retain the good and 
throw off the bad in all the various forms of our rehg- 
ious and ecclesiastical life. 

3. Again, there is a peculiar charm and interest in 
knowing the accidental historical origin of this service. 
To any one who has a heart to feel and an imagination to 
carry him backwards and forwards along the fields of 
time, there is a pleasure, an edification in the reflection 
that the prayers which we use were not composed in the 
dreamy solitude of the closet or the convent, but Avere 
wrung out of the necessities of human sufferers like our- 
selves. If, here and there, we catch a note of some ex- 



262 ' THE LITANY. [Chap. XIL 

pression not wholly suitable to our own age, there is yet 
something at once grand and comforting in the recollec- 
tion that we hear in those responses the echoes of the 
thunders and earthquakes of central France, of the irrup- 
tion of wild barbarian hordes, of the ruin of the falling 
empire ; that the Litany which we use for oar homelier 
Borrows was, as Hooker says, " the very strength and 
comfort of the Church " in that awful distress of nations. 
" The offences of our forefathers," the " vengeance on our 
sins," the " lightning and tempest," the " plague, pesti- 
lence, and famine," the " battle and murder, and sudden 
death," the " prisoners and captives," the " desolate and 
oppressed," the "troubles and adversities," the "hurt of 
persecutions," — all. these phrases receive a double force 
if they recall to us the terrors of that dark, disastrous 
time, when the old world was hastening to its end, and 
the new was hardly struggling into existence. 

4. Further, it was under a like pressure of calamities 
that the Litany first became part of our services. It is 
the earliest portion of the English Prayer Book that ap- 
peared in its present English form. It was translated 
from Latin into English either by Archbishop Cranmer 
or by King Henry VIII. himself. These are the words 
with which, on the eve of his expedition to France in 
1544, he sent this first instalment of the Prayer Book to 
Cranmer: "Calling to our remembrance the miserable 
state of all Christendom, being at this present time 
plagued, besides all other troubles, with most cruel wars, 
hatreds, and disunions, .... the help and remedy hereof 
being far exceeding the power of any man, must be 
called for of Him who only is able to grant our petitions, 
and never forsaketh or repelleth any that firmly believe 
and faithfully call upon Him ; unto whom also the ex- 
amples of Scripture encourage us in all these and others 
our troubles and perplexities to flee. Being therefore re- 



Chap. XII.] ITS ORIGIN. 263 

solved to have continually from liencefortli general pro- 
cessions in all cities, towns, and churches or parishes of 
this our realm, .... forasmuch as heretofore the peo- 
ple, partly foi lack of good instruction, partly that they 
understood no part of such prayers and suffrages as were 
used to be said and sung, have used to come very slackly, 
we have set forth certain goodly prayers and suffrages 
in our native English tongue, which we send you here- 
with." 1 

Thus it is that whilst the Litany at its first beginning 
expressed the distress of the first great convulsion of Eu- 
rope in the fall of the Roman Empire, the Litany in its 
present form expressed the cry of distress in that second 
great convulsion which accompanied, the Reformation. 
It is the first utterance of the English nation in its own 
native English tongue, calling for divine help, in that ex- 
tremity of perplexity, when men's hearts were divided 
between hope and despair for the fear of those things 
that were coming on the earth. 

5. In like manner many a time have those expressions 
of awe and fear struck some chord in the hearts of in- 
dividuals, far more deeply than had they been more 
calmly and deliberately composed at first. 

How affecting is that account of Samuel Johnson, 
whom, in the church of St. Clement Danes, his biog- 
rapher overheard repeating in a voice that trembled 
with emotion the petition which touched the only sensi- 
tive chord in his strong mind, " In the hour of death 
and in the day of judgment, good Lord deliver us ! " 
How striking was the use made by a great orator of the 
words of another clause, when, on the occasion of the 
omission of the name of an unfortunate princess from 
the Liturgy, he said that there was at least one passage 
in the Litany where all might think of her and pray for 
her — amongst those who were " desolate and oppressed." 

1 Froude's History of England, iv. 482. 



26 i THE LITANY. [Chap. XII. 

II. Secondly, it is instructive to notice how, in suc- 
ceeding ages, the particular grievance or want 
of the time, sometimes well, sometimes ill, has 
labored to express itself amongst these petitions. 

1. It was natural that, in the reign of Edward VI., 
when the burdensome yoke of the see of Rome had only 
just been shaken off, a prayer should been added, — 
" From the tyrann^^ of the Bishop of Rome, and from all 
his detestable enormities, good Lord deliver us." This 
was perhaps excusable under the circumstances ; but it 
is a matter of rejoicing that, by the wisdom of Elizabeth, 
this fierce expression should have been struck out. • 
- 2. Again, amidst the general unsettlement of civil and 
religious society in the time of Henry VIIL, and of 
Charles IL, it was no wonder that the petitions should 
have been crowded with alarms, in the first instance, of 
^' sedition, privy conspiracy, false doctrine, and heresy," 
or " hardness of heart and contempt of God's command- 
ments ; " in the second instance of '' rebellion and schism." 

These expressions dwell too exclusively on the dan- 
gers of disorder and anarchy, and too little on the dan- 
gers of despotism and arbitrary power. Yet there is 
one petition, which first came in with the dawn of the 
Reformation, which no ancient Litany seems to have con- 
tained, and yet which attacks the chief sin that called 
down the displeasure of Christ — the prayer against %- 
'pocrisy. It is not unimportant to remember that in the 
prayer against that sin, in its full extent — the sin of 
acting a part — the sin of disregarding truth — the sin of 
regarding the outward more than the inward — in that 
one prayer is summed up the whole spirit of the Refor- 
mation. 

3. Again, the present Litany stands alone in the 
prominence which it gives, and the emphasis which it 
imparts, to the prayer for the sovereign. It was no 



Chap. XII.] ITS CONTENTS. 265 

doubt intended to be the expression of the great princi- 
ple vindicated in Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity," that 
the sovereign, as representative of the law, controls and 
guides the whole concerns both of Church and State. 
It was the expression of the wish to secure for the in- 
terest of the State no less than for the interest of the 
clergy, not merely as in the old Litanies, victory abroad, 
and peace at home, but righteousness and holiness of 
life, the faith, the fear, and the love of God. 

4. Again, as we read some of the petitions we cannot 
but call to mind the wishes of good men that something 
might have been added or explained. The prayer 
against sudden death. — Earnestly did the Puritan divines 
in the time of Charles 11. entreat that this might be ex- 
panded into what was probably intended, and what in 
fact existed in the older forms — " From dying suddenly 
and unprepared." It was a natural scruple. Many a 
one has felt that " sudden death " would be a blessing 
and not a curse — and that to those who are prepared 
no death can be sudden. The hard, uncompromising 
rulers of that age refused to listen to the remonstrance ; 
and we, as we utter the prayer in its unaltered form, 
may justly feel a momentary pang at the thought of the 
good men on whose consciences they thus needlessly 
trampled. 

Again, let any reflect on the changes meditated by the 
good men who made the last attempt of revision in 1689 : 
" From all rash censure and contention ; " and again, 
" from drunkenness and gluttony^'^ " from sloth and mis- 
spending of our time^^ from lying and slandering^ from 
vain swearing., cursing, and perjury, from covetousness, 
oppression^ and all injustice, good Lord deliver us ; " 
" let it please Thee to endue us with the graces of 
humility and meekness., of contentedness and patience, of 
true justice, of temperance and purity, of peaceahleness 



266 THE LITANY. [Chap. XII. 

and charity^^' " and have pit}^ upon all that are perse- 
cuted for truth and rigJiteousness' sake.''' In these in- 
tended additions of Tillotson, Burnet, and Patrick, we 
see at once the keen sense of tlie evils, some of them pe- 
culiar to that age — of the higher virtues, also peculiar 
to that age no less. 

Again, in our own times it has been recorded of Arch- 
bishop Whately, that when he came to the prayer that 
we might not " be hurt by persecutions," he always 
added internally a prayer, " that we may not be perse- 
cutors." This was a holy and a noble thought, much 
needed, well supplied, which perhaps before our age it 
would hardly have occurred to any ecclesiastic to utter. 

In this way the Litany has grown with the growth of 
Christendom ; and may, without any direct change, sug- 
gest even more than it says to those who use it rightly. 

III. We turn from the occasion and the growth of the 
Litany to the form in which it is expressed. That form 
is very peculiar, and its explanation is to be 
sought in the occasion of its first introduction. 
The . usual mode of addressing our prayers, both in the 
Scriptures and in the Prayer Book, is to God, our 
Father, through Jesus Christ. This is the form of the 
Lord's Prayer, after which manner we are all taught to 
pray. This is the form throughout the New Testament, 
with two exceptions, which shall be noticed presently. 
This was the general mode of prayer throughout the 
early ages of the Church. Even those earlier forms of 
prayer which are most like the Litany are for the first 
three hundred years of the Church always addressed 
direct to God the Father.^ It was the normal condition 
of the only part of the Liturgy that is of ancient use 
— that of the Eucharist. In conformity with this, is 
the plan adopted in almost all the collects and prayers 

1 See Keble's Eucharistlcal Adoration, p. 114. 



Chap. XII.] ITS FOEM. 267 

in the other parts of the English Prayer Book. Most 
important is this, both because only by so douig do we 
fulfil the express commands of Christ and also because it 
thus keeps before our minds the truth, which the Script- 
ures never allow us to let go, of the Unity of Almighty 
God. Most fully, too, have the greatest ecclesiastical 
authorities on this subject recognized both the doctrine 
and the fact, that, as a general rule, prayer ought to be 
addressed, and has in the usual form of ancient catholic 
devotion been always addressed, only to God the Father. 
But there are exceptions. No rule, even in these 
sacred matters, is so rigid as not to admit some varia- 
tions. The largest number of such variations are in the 
poetical parts of the service, and are probably connected 
with the peculiar feeling which led to the use of poetic 
diction in public worship. But the most remarkable 
exception is the Litany. It is not perhaps certain that 
all the petitions are addressed to Christ ; ^ but at any 
rate, a large portion are so addressed. It stands in this 
respect almost isolated amidst the rest of the Prayer 
Book. What is the reason — what is the defence for 
this? Many excellent persons have at times felt a scru- 
ple at such a deviation from the precepts of Scripture 
and from the practice of ancient Christendom. What 
are we to say to explain it ? The explanation may 
be found in the original circumstances under which the 
Litany was introduced. When the soul is overwhelmed 
with difficulties and distresses, like those which caused 
the French Christians in the fifth century to utter their 
piteous supplications to God, it seems to be placed in 
a different posture from that of common life. The in- 
visible world is brought much nearer — the language, the 

i "We beseech Thee to hear us, Lord," is hi the older Litanies addressed 
to God (Martene, iii. 52), and so it would seem to be in some of the petitions in 
the English Litany. But perhaps the most natural interpretation is to regard 
the whole as addressed to Christ. 



268 THE LITANY. [Chap. XH. 

feelings, of the heart become more impassioned, more 
vehement, more argent. The inhabitants, so to speak, 
of the workl of spirits seem to become present to our 
spirits ; the words of common intercourse seem unequal 
to convey the thoughts which are laboring to express 
themselves. As in poetry, so in sorrow, and for a simi- 
lar reason, our ordinary forms of speech are changed. 
So it was in the two exceptions which occur in the New. 
Testament. When Stephen was in the midst of his ene 
mies, and no help for him left on earth, then "• the heavens 
were opened, and he saw the Son of Man standing on 
the right hand of God," and, thus seeing Him, he ad- 
dressed his petition straight to Him — " Lord Jesus, re- 
ceive my spirit — Lord laj^ not this sin to their charge." 
When St. Paul was deeply oppressed by the thorn in 
the flesh, then again his Lord appeared to him (we know 
not how), and then to Him, present to the eye whether 
of the body or the spirit (as on the road to Damascus), 
the Apostle addressed the threefold supplication, " Let 
this depart from me," and the answer, in like manner, 
to the ear of the body or spirit, was direct — " My grace 
is sufiicient for thee." So is it in the Litany. Those 
who wrote it, and we who use it, stand for the moment 
in the place of Stephen and Paul. We knock, as it were, 
more earnestly at the gates of heaven — we " thrice be- 
seech the Lord " — and the veil is for a moment with- 
drawn, and the Son of Man is there standing to receive 
our prayer. In that rude time, when the Litany was 
first introduced, they who used it would fain have drawn 
back the veil further still. It was in the Litanies of the 
Middle Ages that we first find the invocations not only 
of Christ our Saviour, but of those earthly saints who 
have departed with Him into that other world. These 
the. Protestant Churches have now ceased to address. 
But the feeling which induced men to call upon them is 
the same in kind as that which runs through this whole 



Chap. XII.] ITS FORM. 269 

exceptional service : namely, the endeavor, under the 
pressure of strong emotion and heavy calamity, to bring 
ourselves more nearly into the presence of the Invisible. 
Christ and the saints at such times seemed to come out 
like stars, which in the daylight cannot be seen, but in 
the darkness of the night are visible. The saints, like 
falHng stars or passing meteors, have again receded into 
the darkness. Christians by increased reflection have 
been brought to feel that of them and of their state not 
enough is known to justify this invocation of their help. 
But Christ, the Lord and King of the saints, still re- 
mains — the Bright and Morning Star, more visible than 
all the rest, more bright and more cheering, as the dark- 
ness of the night becomes deeper, as the cold becomes 
more and more chill. 

We justly acquiesce in the practice which has excluded 
those lesser mediators. But this one remarkable excep- 
tion of the Litany in favor of addressing our prayers to 
the one Great Mediator may be permitted, if we remem- 
ber that it is an exception, and if we understand the 
grounds on which it is made. In the rest of the Prayer 
Book we follow the ancient rule and our Master's own 
express command, by addressing the Father only. Here 
in the Litany, when we express our most urgent needs, 
it may be allowed to us to deviate from that general rule, 
and invite the aid of Jesus Christ, at once the Son of Man 
and Son of God. 

Such being the case, two important results are involved 
in this form of the Litany. 

1. If, on this solemn occasion, Ave can thus leave for 
a moment the prescribed order of devotion, and, with 
Stephen and Paul, address to Christ the prayers which 
we usually address to the Father, it implies a unity be- 
tween the Father and the Son which is sometimes over- 
looked. Often we read staternents which seem to speak 
of the Father and the Son as if they were two rival di- 



270 THE LITANY. [Chap. XII. 

vinities, the one all justice, the other all love ; the one 
bent on destroying guilty sinners, the other striving to 
appease the Father's wrath ; the one judging and forgiv- 
ing, the other suffering and pleading. Such is the im- 
pression we many of us receive from some expressions in 
Milton's " Paradise Lost," and in Protestant and Roman 
Catholic divines, and from many well-known hymns. It 
is the reverse of this impression that we receive from 
the Litany. It is not the wrath of the Father, but the 
wrath of Christ from which in the Litany we pray to be 
delivered. It is the goodness and forgiveness, not of the 
Father, but of Christ, that we entreat for our sins. The 
mind and purpose of God is made known to us through 
the mind and purpose of Christ. We feel this truth no- 
where more keenly than in the trials and sorrows of life ; 
and we therefore express it nowhere more strongly than 
in the Litany. 

2. Again, the Litany sets before us- in its true aspect 
the meaning of Redemption. What is Redemption ? It 
is, in one word, deliverance. We are in bondage to evil 
habits, in bondage to fear, in bondage to ignorance, in 
bondage to superstition, in bondage to sin : what we need 
is freedom and liberty. That is what we ask for every 
time we repeat the Litany : " Good Lord, set us free." 
Libera nos, Domine. 

Deliverance — how, or by what means ? By one part 
of Christ's appearance ? by one part of Christianity ? by 
a single doctrine or a single fact ? By all — by the whole. 
Not by His sufferings only — not by His death only — 
not by His teaching only ; but " by the mystery of His 
holy incarnation — by His baptism — by His fasting — 
by His temptation — by His agony and bloody sweat — 
by His precious death and burial — by His glorious res- 
urrection and ascension, and by the comin.]^ of the Holy 
Ghost." This wide meaning of the mode of Redenaption 
was a truth sufficiently appreciated in the early ages of 



Chap. XII.] ITS FORM. 271 

the Church ; and then it was piece by piece divided and 
subdivided, till the whole effect was altered and spoiled. 
Let us go back once more in the Litany to the complex yet 
simple whole. Let us believe more nearly as we pray. 

The particular forms used may be open to objection. 
We might wish that some of the features had been omit- 
ted, or that other features had been added. But there 
remains the general truth — that it is by the whole life 
and appearance of Christ we hope to be delivered. 

Deliverance from what ? From what is it that we ask 
to be ransomed, redeemed, delivered ? This also was 
well understood in the early Church, though sometimes 
expressed in strange language. It was, as they then put 
it, " deliverance from the power of the devil " — deliver- 
ance from that control over the world which was in those 
days supposed to be possessed by the Evil Spirit. This 
belief, in form, has passed away. We do not now see 
demons lurking in every corner. But the substance of 
the belief remains. We pray in the Litany for deliver- 
ance from evil in all its forms ; from evil, moral and 
physical ; from the evil in our own hearts ; from the evil 
brought on the world by the misgovernment, and anarchy, 
and wild passions of mankind ; from the evils of sickness 
and war and tempest ; from the trials of tribulation and 
from the trials of wealth ; — from all these it is that we 
ask for deliverance. Each petition places before us some 
of the real evils in life which keep us in bondage. In 
proportion as we get rid of them we share in Christ's re- 
demption. This is the object of the most earnest sup- 
plications of the Church ; because it is the object of 
Christianity itself ; because it is the purpose for which 
Christ came into the world ; because, if He delivers us 
not from these, He delivers us from nothing; because, so 
far as He delivers us from these. He has accomplished 
the work which He was sent to do. Let us act and think 
more nearly as we pray. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. 

The belief of the early Christians, that is, of the Chris- 
tians from the close of the first century to the conversion 
of the Empire at the beginning of the fourth, is a question 
which is at once more difficult and more easy to answer 
than we might have thought beforehand. 

It is in one sense extremely difficult. 

The popular, the actual belief of a generation or society 
of men cannot always be ascertained from the contem- 
porary writers, who belong for the most part to another 
stratum. The belief of the people of England at this 
moment is something separate from the books, the news- 
papers, the watchwords of parties. It is in the air. It 
is in their intimate conversation. We must hear, espe- 
cially in the case of the simple and unlearned, what they 
talk of to each other. We must sit by their bedsides ; 
get at what gives them most consolation, what most oc- 
cupies their last moments. This, whatever it be, is the 
belief of the people, right or wrong — this, and this only, 
is their real religion. A celebrated Roman Catholic 
divine of the present day has described, in a few short 
sentences, what he conceives to be the religious creed of 
the people of England : — that it consists of a general be- 
lief in Providence and in a future life. He is probably 
right. But it is something quite apart from any formal 
creeds or confessions or watchwords which exist. Is it 
possible to ascertain this concerning the early Christians ? 
The books of that period are few and far between, and 



Chap. XIIL] THEIR STRUCTURE. 273 

these books are, for the most part, the works of learned 
scholars rather than of popular writers. Can we apart 
from such books discover what was their most ready and 
constant representation of their dearest hopes here and 
hereafter ? Strange to say, after all this lapse of time it 
is possible. The answer, at any rate, for that large mass 
of Christians from all parts of the empire that was col- 
lected in the capital, is to be found in the Roman Cata- 
combs. 

It is not necessary to enter upon the formation of the 
Catacombs. For a general view it may be sufficient to 
refer to '' On Pagan and Christian Sepulture," Tj^gCata- 
in the '' Essays " of Dean Milman. For the "^^^'• 
details of the question it is more than sufficient to refer 
to the great work of Commendatore De Rossi. It has 
been amply proved by the investigations of the last two 
hundred, and especially of the last thirty years, that there 
were in the neighborhood of Rome, from the first be- 
gining of the settlement of the Jews in the city, large 
galleries dug in the rock, which they used for their places 
of burial. The Christians, following the example of the 
Jews, did the same on a larger scale. In these galleries 
they wrote on the graves of their friends the thoughts 
that were most consoling to themselves, or painted on 
the walls the figures which gave them most pleasure. By 
a singular chance these memorials have been preserved to 
us by the very causes which have destroyed so much be- 
side. The Catacombs were deserted at the time of the 
invasion of the barbarians, and filled up with ruins and 
rubbish ; and from the sixth to the seventeenth century 
no one thought it worth while to explore them. The 
burial of Christian antiquity was as complete as that of 
Pagan antiquity, and the resurrection of both took place 
nearly at the same time. The desertion, the overthrow 
of these ancient galleries, has been to the Christian life 

18 



274 THE ROJ^IAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII. 

of that time wliat the overthrow of Pompeii by the ashes 
of Vesuvius was to the Pagan life of the period imme- 
diately antecedent. The Catacombs are the Pompeii of 
early Christianity. It is much to the credit of the au- 
thorities of the Roman States that at the time when the 
excavations began they allowed these monuments to 
speak for themselves. Many questionable interpretations 
have been put upon them, but in no respect has there 
been substantiated any charge of wilful falsification. 

We confine ourselves to the simple statement of the 
testimony which they render to the belief of the second 
and third centuries. For this reason, we exclude from 
consideration almost, if not altogether, those subsequent 
to the age of Constantine. We merely state the facts as 
they occur ; and if the results be pleasing or displeasing 
to the members of this or that school of modern relig- 
ious opinion, perhaps it will be a sufficient safeguard that 
they will be almost equally pleasing or displeasing to the 
members of all such schools equally. 

I. First, what do we learn of the state of feeling indi- 
cated in the very structure of the Catacombs beyond 
what any books could teach us ? 

The Catacombs are the standing monuments of the 
Oriental and Jewish character even of Western Chris- 
Their jewisii tiauity. The fact that they are the counterparts 
character. ^£ ^^i^ rock-hcwu touibs of Palestine, and yet 
more closely of the Jewish cemeteries in the neighborhood 
of Rome, corresponds to the fact that the early Roman 
Church was not a Latin but an Eastern community, 
speaking Greek, and following the usages of Syria. And 
again, the ease with which the Roman Christians had re- 
course to these cemeteries is an indication of the impar- 
Thetoiera- tiality of the Roman law, which extended (as 
?a°rVc£?s- ^^ Rossi has well pointed out) to this despised 
tians. gg^^ ^i^g same protection in respect to burial, 

even during the times of persecution, that was accorded 



Chap. XIII.] THEIR PAINTINGS. 275 

to tlie highest in the land. They thus bear witness to 
the unconscious fostering care of the Imperial Government 
over the infant Church. They are thus monuments, not 
so much of the persecution as of the toleration, which the 
Christians received at the hands of the Roman Empire. 

These two circumstances, confirmed as they are from 
various quarters, are, as it were, the framework in whicli 
the ideas of the Church of the Catacombs are enshrined, 
and yet they are quite unknown to the common ecclesi- 
astical histories. 

3. A similar profound ignorance shrouded the existence 
of the Catacombs themselves. There are no allusions to 
the Catacombs in Gibbon, or Mosheim, or Neander ; nor, 
in fact, in any ecclesiastical histor}^ down to the close of 
the first quarter of this century. Dean Milman's " His- 
tory of Christianity" was the earliest exception. Nor 
again is there any allusion in the Fathers to their most 
striking characteristics. St. Jerome's narrative of being 
taken into them as a child is simply a description of the 
horror they inspired. Prudentius has a passing allusion 
to the paintings, but nothing that gives a notion of their 
extent and importance. 

II. We now proceed to the beliefs themselves, as pre- 
sented in the pictures or inscriptions, confining ourselves 
as much as possible to those whicli are earliest 

■"■ _ , The pictures. 

and most universal. But before entering on 
these, let us glance for a moment at those which, though 
belonging to the latest years of this period — the close of 
the third century — yet still illustrate the general charac- 
ter even of the earlier. The subjects of these paintings 
are for the most part taken from the Bible, and are as 
follows : In the New Testament they are the Adoration 
of the Magi, the Feeding of the Disciples, Zacchseus in 
the Sycamore, the Healing of the Paralytic, the Raising 
of Lazarus, the Washing of Pilate's Hands,^ Peter's 

1 Tertullian ( On the Lord's Prayer, c. 13) censures strongly the practice of 



276 THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII 

Denial, the Seizure of Peter by the Jews. In the Old 
Testament they are the Creation, the Sacrifice of Isaac, 
the Stag desiring the Water Brooks, the Striking of the 
Rock, Jonah and the Whale, Jonah under the Gourd, 
Daniel in the Lions' Den, the Three Children in the 
Fire, Susanna and the Elders. 

On this selection we will make three general remarks. 
1. Whilst it does not coincide with the theology and the 
art of the modern Western Church, it coincides to a cer- 
tain degree with the selection that we find in the Eastern 
Continuance Churcli. The Raising of Lazarus, for example, 
em, neglect fell Completely out of the range of the Italian 
ernciiurcii. palutcrs and out of the scholastic theology of 
the Middle Ages ; but it may still be traced in the By- 
zantine traditions as preserved in Russia. In one of the 
most ancient chapels of the Kremlin there is a represen- 
tation of the mummy-like form of Lazaros issuing from 
his tomb, exactly similar to that which appears in the 
Roman Catacombs. The Three Children, who cease to 
occupy any important place in the Latin Church, are re- 
peatedly brought forward in the Eastern Church. Three 
choristers stand in front of the altar at a particular part 
of the service to represent them, and the only attempt at 
a mystery or miracle play in the Middle Ages of Russia 
was the erection of a large wooden platform with the 
painted appearance of fire underneath, on which three 
actors stood forth and played by gesture and song the 
part of the Three Children. 

2. Secondly, the mere fact of paintings at all in these 
contradic- ©^^rly chapcls is in direct contradiction to the 
theVo-icai general condemnation of any painting of sacred 
writers. subjccts iu the writcrs ^ of the first centuries. 

M-asbing hands before prayer, and says that on inquiry be found it -^as in im- 
itation of Pilate's act. 

1 See the summary of opinions of the Fathers on art in the English transla. 
tion of Tertiillian iu the Library of the Fathers. (Notes to the Aj^ology, vol. 
ii. p. no.) 



Chap. XIII.] THEIR PAINTINGS. 277 

It is as if the popular sentiment had not only run coun- 
ter to the written theology, but had been actually igno- 
rant of it. 

3. Thirdly, the selection of these subjects, whether in 
the Eastern or in the Western Church, is quite out of 
proportion to the choice of these same subjects Absence of 
in the books of the time that have come down booTiof the 
to us. Few of them are conspicuously present *™® 
in the writers of the three first, or indeed of the sixteen 
first centuries ; and of one of them, at least, the arrest of 
Peter by the Jewish soldiers, it is not too much to say 
that there is no incident record in any extant books to 
which it can with certainty be applied at all. 

These points do not illustrate any contradiction to 
the existing opinions either of Protestant or Catholic 
Churches in modern times. The subject to which these 
paintings relate for the most part do not involve, even by 
remote implication, any of these disputed opinions. But 
they indicate a difference deeper than any mere expres- 
sion of particular doctrines. They show that the current 
of early Christian thought ran in an altogether differ- 
ent channel, both from the contemporary writers of the 
early period, and also both from the paintings and the 
writings of the later period. In the collection of the 
works of the Fathers of the second and third centuries, 
it is difficult to find allusion to any one of these topics. 
Of the paintings of the tenth and eleventh centuries re- 
cently discovered in the subterranean church of St. 
Clement at Rome, not one of all the numerous series is 
identical with those in the Catacombs. 

III. But this peculiarity of the Catacombs thus visible 
to a certain extent, even in the third century, appears 
still more forcibly when we confine ourselves to the ear- 
liest chambers, and to the most important figures which 
they contain. 



278 THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap, Xllf. 

There is one sucli chamber especiall}^ which, accord- 
mg to the Commenclatore De Rossi, is the earliest that 
can be found, reaching back to the beginning of the 
second century. It is that commonly known as the 
Catacomb of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus, otherwise of St. 
Domitilla. 

In this chamber there are three general characteris- 
tics : — 

1. Everything is cheerful and joyous. This, to a cer- 
tain degree, pervades all the Catacombs. Although some 
Cheerful- ^f them must have been made in times of per- 
^^^^' secution, yet even in these the nearest ap- 

proach to such images of distress and suffering is in the 
figures before noticed — (and these are not" found in the 
earliest stage) — the Three Children in the Fire, Daniel 
in the Lions' Den, and Jonah naked under the Gourd. 
But of the mournful emblems which belong to nearly all 
the later ages of Christianity, almost all are wanting in 
almost all the Catacombs. There is neither the cross of 
the fifth or sixth centur}?, nor the crucifix or the cruci- 
fixion of the twelfth or thirteenth, nor the tortures and 
martyrdoms of the seventeenth, nor the skeletons of the 
fifteenth, nor the cypresses and death's heads of the 
eighteenth. There are, instead, wreaths of roses, winged 
genii, children playing. This is the general ornamenta- 
tion. It is a variation not noticed in ordinary ecclesias- 
tical history. But it is there. There are two words used 
in the very earliest account of the very earliest Christian 
community to which the English language furnishes no 
exact equivalent ; one is their exulting bounding glad- 
ness (dyaAAtao-ts) ; the Other, their simplicity and smooth- 
ness of feeling, as of a plain without stones, of a field 
without furrows (df^cAorr??). These two words from the 
records of the first century^ represent to us what ap- 

1 Acts ii. 46. 



Chap. XIIL] HEATHEN SUBJECTS. 279 

pears in the second century in the Roman Catacombs. 
It may be doubted whether they have ever been equally 
represented at any subsequent age. 

2. Connected with this fact is another. It is aston- 
ishing how many of these decorations are taken from 
heathen sources and copied from heathen paint- Heathen 
ings. There is Orpheus playing on his harp to s^^:!^^*^- 
the beasts ; there is Bacchus as the God of the vintage ; 
there is Psyche, the butterfly of the soul ; there is the 
Jordan as the God of the river. The Classical and the 
Christian, the Hebrew and the Hellenic, elements had 
not yet parted. The strict demarcation which the books 
of the period would imply between the Christian Church 
and the heathen world had not yet been formed, or was 
constantly effaced. The Catacombs have more affinity 
with the chapel of Alexander Severus, which contained 
Orpheus side by side with Abraham and Christ, than 
they have with the writings of Tertullian, who spoke of 
heathen poets only to exult in their future torments, or 
of Augustine, who regarded this very figure of Orpheus 
only as a mischievous teacher to be disparaged, not as a 
type of the union of the two forms of heathen and Chris- 
tian civilization. It agrees with the fact that the funeral 
inscriptions are often addressed Bis Manihus, " to the 
funeral spirits." 

3. We see in the earliest chambers not only the be- 
ginning, but in a certain sense the end of early Chris- 
tian art. By the time we reach the fourth cent- -^^^^^ (.^^^.-g. 
ury the figures are mishapen, rude, and stiff, *^^^ ^^*'- 
partaking of that decadence which marks the Arch of 
Constantine, and which is developed into the forms after- 
wards called Byzantine. But in the second and third 
centuries, in the Catacombs of St. Domitilla, of St. 
Prsetextatus, and St. Priscilla, there is in the sweetness 
of the countenance, the depths of the eyes, the grace and 



280 THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII. 

majesty of the forms, an inspiration of a higher source, 
it may be partly from the contact with the still living 
art of Greece, it may be from the contact with a purer 
and higher flame of devotion not yet burnt out in fierce 
controversy. 

There is a figure which occurs constantly in the Cata- 
combs, and which in those earliest of all has a peculiar 
grace of its own — that of the dead person represented 
in the peculiar position of prayer, which has now en- 
tirely ceased in all Christian churches, but as it may 
still now and then be seen in Mahometan countries — 
the attitude of standing with the hands stretched out to 
receive the gifts which Heaven would pour into them. 
Such are the figures of the " Oranti," as they are techni- 
cally called, in the Catacombs, men or women, according 
to the sex of the departed. Such also were the holy 
hands and upturned eyes of the worshippers in the 
heathen temples of Greece or Rome. The most perfect 
representation of this in Christian art is, perhaps, that of 
the departed Christian in the Catacomb of St. Priscilla. 
The most perfect representation of this in heathen art is, 
perhaps, that of the bronze figure of an adoring youth, 
found in the Rhine, of this same period of the Roman 
Empire, and now in the Museum at Berlin. An ani- 
mated description which has been given of this statue in 
a recent work devoted to Greek art, might, with a few 
changes of expression, be applied to the painting of the 
departed Christian in the Catacomb of St. Priscilla. 
" His eyes and arras are raised to heaven ; perfect in hu- 
manity beneath the lightsome vault of heaven, he stands 
,and prays — no adoration with veiled eyes and mutter- 
ing lips — no prostration, with the putting off of sandals 
on holy ground — no genuflexion, like the bending of a 
reed waving with the wind, — but such as lamus in the 
mid waves of Alpheius might have prayed when he 



Chap. XIII.] THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 281 

heard the voice of Phcfibus calling to him, and promising 
to him the twofold gift of prophecy.'' 

Such is the ideal of the worshipping youth, of a Pagan 
temple of that period — - such is the transfigured ideal of 
the worshipping maiden or matron in the Christian Cata- 
comb. Such has not been the ideal of worship in any 
later age of the Church. 

IV. But the question might here be asked, if these sa- 
cred decorations are so like what we find in heathen tombs 
or houses, how do we know that we are in a Christian 
burial-place at all ? What is the sign that we are here in 
the chamber of a Christian family ? What is the test, 
what is the watchword, by which these early Christians 
were knowa from those who were not Christians ? 

We have already indicated some of the Biblical sub- 
jects ; we also know well what we should find in the vari- 
ous later churches, whether Greek, Latin, Anglican, Lu- 
theran, or Nonconformist. Some distinctive emblems we 
should find everywhere, either in books, pictures, or stat- 
ues. But none of these were in the Catacombs even of 
the third century : and in the Catacombs of the second 
century, not even those which are found in the third and 
fourth centuries. 

1. What, then, is the test or sign of Christian popular 
belief that in these earliest representations of Christianity 
is handed down to us as the most cherished, the r^^g q^^^ 
all-sufficing token of their creed ? It is very shepherd. 
simple, but it contains a great deal. It is a shepherd in 
the bloom of youth, with a crook or a shepherd's pipe in 
one hand, and on his shoulder a lamb, which he carefully 
carries and holds with the other hand. We see at once 
who it is ; we all know without being told. There are 
two passages in two of the sacred books, which, whatever 
may be the critical discussion about their dates, must be 
inferred from these paintings to have been by that time 



282 THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII. 

firmly rooted in the popular belief of the community. 
One is that from the Third Gos23el, which speaks of the 
shepherd going over the hills of Palestine to seek the 
sheep that was lost ; the other, that from the Fourth 
Gospel, which says, " I am the Good Shepherd," or, as 
perhaps we might venture to translate it, " I am the 
Beautiful Shepherd." This, in that earliest chamber or 
church of a Christian family of which we are chiefly 
speaking, is the one sign of Christian life and of Chris- 
tian belief. But as it is the only, or almost the only, sign 
of Christian belief in this earliest Catacomb, so it con- 
tinues (with those other pictures of which we have 
spoken) always the chief, always the prevailing, sign as 
long as those burial-places were used. Sometimes it is 
with one sheep, sometimes with several sheep in various 
attitudes ; some listening to his voice, some turning awa5^ 
Sometimes it appears in chapels, sometimes on the tombs 
themselves ; sometimes on the tombs of the humblest and 
poorest; sometimes in the sepulchres of Emperors and 
Empresses — Galla Placidia and Honorius — but always 
the chief mark of the Christian life and faith. 

On the other hand there is no allusion to the Good 
Shepherd (with one exception) in the writers of the 
second century, and very few in the third ; hardly any in 
Athanasius ^ or in Jerome. If we come down much later, 
there is hardly any in the " Surama Theologize " of 
Thomas Aquinas, none in the Tridentine Catechism, 
none in the Thirty-nine Articles, none in the Westmin- 
ster Confession. The only prominent allusions we find 
to this figure in the writers of early times are drawn 

1 Origen {Horn v. on Jeremiah iii., 152) has a some-\vhat detailed reference. 
His other allusions are of the most perfunctory kind. So also Cyprian (Clem. 
Alex. P(Ed. i. 7i 9 ; Strom, i. 26), has similar slight references. There is noth- 
ing in Irenaeus or Justin, and only three passing notices in Tertullian (De Pati- 
entid, c. 12; De Pudicitid, c. 9, 16). A more distinct reference is in the Acts of 
Perpetua and Felicitas. 



Chap. XIII.] THE GOOO SHEPHERD. ' 283 

from that same under-current of Christian society to 
which the Catacombs themselves belong. One is the 
allusion, in an angry complaint of Tertullian,^ to the 
chalices used in the Communion, on which the Good 
Shepherd was a frequent subject ; the other is in the once 
popular book of devotion, the " Pilgrim's Progress " of 
the Church of the second century, which was spread far 
and wide from Italy even to Greece, Egypt, and Abys- 
sinia, namely, the once universal, once canonical, once 
inspired, now forgotten and disparaged, but always cu- 
rious book called the " Shepherd of Hermas." 

This disproportion between the almost total absence of 
this figure in the works of the learned, and its predomi- 
nant prevalence where we most surely touch the hearts 
and thoughts of the first Christians — this gives the an- 
swer to the question, — What was the popular Religion 
of the first Christians ? It was, in one word, the Relig- 
ion of the Good Shepherd. The kindness, the courage, 
the grace, the love, the beauty, of the Good Shepherd 
was to the*m, if we may so say. Prayer Book and Articles, 
Creed and Canons, all in one. They looked on that fig- 
ure, and it conveyed to them all that they wanted. As 
ages passed on, the Good Shepherd faded away from the 
mind of the Christian world, and other emblems of the 
Christian faith have taken his place. Instead of the gra- 
cious and gentle Pastor, there came the Omnipotent Judge 
or the Crucified Sufferer, or the Infant in His Mother's 
arms, or the Master in His Parting Supper, or the figures 
of innumerable saints and angels, or the elaborate exposi- 
tions of the various forms of theological controvers}^ 

These changes may have been inevitable. Christianity 
is too vast and complex to be confined to the expressions 

1 "As this is a singular instance only of a symbolical representation or em- 
blem, so it is the only instance Petavius pretends to find in all the three first 
ages." (Bingham, viii. 8.) So Bingham and Petavius thought. They little 
knew that the Good Shepherd was the constant Christian emblem. 



284 THE EOMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII. 

of any single age, or of any single nation, and what was 
suitable for one age may become unsuited for another. 
Still, it is useful for us to go back to this its earliest form, 
and ask what must have been the ideas suggested by it. 

(a.) It was an instance of that general connection just 

now noticed between the new Christian belief and the 

old Pagan world. A figure not unlike the Good 

Connection ^, , t , t « . 

withhea- hhepherd had from time to time appeared m 

then belief. , ^ . ■■ . n^i i tt 

the Grecian worship. There was the Hermes 
Kriophorus — Mercury with the ram — as described by 
Pausanias. There were also the figures of dancing shep- 
herds in the tombs of the Nasones near Rome. In one in- 
stance, in the Christian Catacombs, the Good Shepherd 
appears surrounded by the Three Graces.^ In the tomb 
of Galla Placidia, He might well be the youthful Apollo 
playing with his pipes to the flocks of Admetus. There 
had not yet sprung up the fear of taking as the chief 
symbol of Christianity an idea or a' figure which would 
be equally acknowledged by Pagans. 

(5.) It represents to us the joyful, cheerful side of 

Christianity, of which we spoke" before. Look at that 

beautiful, grraceful figure, bounding down as if 

The joyous ^ fc? ' t> 

aspect of from his native hills, with the happy sheep nest- 

Christianity. , f . 

ling on his shoulder, with the pastoral pipes m 
his hand, blooming in immortal youth. It is the exact 
representation of the Italian shepherd as we constantly 
encounter him on the Sabine hills at this day, holding the 
stray lamb on his shoulders, with a strong hand grasping 
the twisted legs as they hang on his breast. Just such a 
one appears on a fresco in the so-called house of Livia, on 
the Palatine. That is the primitive conception of the 
Founder of Christianity. It is the very reverse of that 
desponding, foreboding, wailing cry that we have often 
heard in later days, as if His religion were going to die 

1 De Rossi, ii. 358. 



The latitude 
of early 
Christianity 



Chap. XIII.] THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 285 

out of the world ; as if He were some dethroned prince, 
whose cause was to be cherished only by the reactionary, 
losing, vanquished parties of the world or Church. The 
popular conception of Him in the early Church was of 
the strong, the joyous youth, of eternal growth, of im- 
mortal grace. 

(c.) It represents to us an aspect of the only Christian 
belief that has not been common in later times, but of 
which we find occasional traces even in the 
writings of these earlier centuries, namely, that »* ^^^ly 
the first object of the Christian community was 
not to repel, but to include — not to condemn, but to save. 
In some of the paintings of the Good Shepherd, this 
aspect of the subject is emphasised by representing the 
creature on his shoulder to be not a lamb, but a kid ; not 
a sheep, but a goat. 

It is this which provokes the indignant remonstrance 
of Tertullian in the only passage of the Father which 
contains a distinct reference to the popular representa- 
tion of the Good Shepherd ; and it is on this unchristian 
protest that Matthew Arnold founds one of his most 
touching poems. 

"He saves the sheep — the goats he doth not save ; 
So spake the fierce Tertullian. 

But she sigh'd — 
The infant Church ! of love she felt the tide 
Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave, 
And then she smil'd, and in the Catacombs 
With eye suffused, but heart inspired true, 
She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew, 
And on his shoulder not a lamb, bu.t kid." 

(c?.) It represents to us the extreme simplicity of this 
early belief. It seems as if that key-note was then 
struck in the popular Christianity of those first ThesimpUc- 
ages, which has in its best aspects made it the £1? chris 
religion of little children and guileless peasants, ^^^""^ ^'' 
and also of childlike philosophers and patriarchal sages. 



286 THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII. 

There is nothing here strange, difficult, mysterious. 
But there was enough to satisfy the early Christian, to 
nerve the suffering martyr, to console the mourner. 
When Bosio, the first explorer of the Catacombs in the 
seventeenth century, opened the tomb of which we have 
been speaking, he was disappointed when he found only 
the Good Shepherd, and went on to other later cham- 
bers and chapels, where there were other more varied 
pictures, and other more complicated emblems. He did 
not know that this one, which he despised for its sim- 
plicity, was the most interesting of all, because the ear- 
liest of alL 

It is possible that others, like Bosio, have gone farther 
and fared worse in their dissatisfaction at so simple a 
representation. It is certain, as has been said, that, till 
quite modern times, ^ the Good Shepherd, and the ideas 
which the figure suggested, had become as strange and 
rare as the doctrines of later times would have seemed 
strange to the dwellers in the Catacombs. 

2. The Good Shepherd, however, is not the only 
figure which pervades the tomb of Domitilla. There is 
another which also, in like manner, predominates else- 
where. 

It is a vine painted on the roof and on the walls, with 
its branches spreading and twisting themselves in every 
direction, loaded with clusters of grapes, and 
seeming to reach over the whole chamber. 
And sometimes this figure of the Vine is the only sign 
of Christian belief. In the tomb of Constantia, the sis- 
ter of the Emperor Constantine, even the Good Shep- 
herd does not appear ; the only decorations that are 

1 It occurs in the pictures of the Frencli Huguenots of the 17th centur}', pre- 
served in the Protestant Library' in the Place Vendome. See also Rowland 
HilTs use of it in his Token of Love {Life of Rowland Hill, p. 428.) In the 
latter half of this century it has become popular in the Roman Church. 



Chap. XIII.] THE VINE. 287 

carved on her coffin and painted on the walls are chil- 
dren gathering the vintage, phicking the grapes, carry- 
ing baskets of grapes on their heads, dancing on the 
grapes to press out the wine. The period in which the 
figure of the Vine appears is more restricted than that 
in which the figure of the Shepherd appears. But tak- 
ing, again, the tomb of Domitilla as our main example, 
it is undeniable that if the chief thought of the early 
Christians was the Good Shepherd, the second was the 
Vine and the Vintage. 

What is the meaning of this ? There are three ideas 
which we may suppose to have been represented. 

(<2.) The first is that which we have noticed before — 
the joyous and festive character of the primitive Chris- 
tian faith. In Eastern countries the vintage is j(.g joyous- 
the great holiday of the year. In the Jewish ^^^^• 
Church there was no festival so gay and so free as the 
Feast of Tabernacles, when they gathered the fruit of 
the vineyard, and enjoyed' themselves in their green 
bowers or tabernacles. 

Lord Macaulay once described, with all his force of lan- 
guage and variety of illustration, how natural and beauti- 
ful was the origin of the heathen legend, which repre- 
sented the victorious march of Dionysus, the inventor of 
the vine, and how every one must have been entranced 
at the coming in of their new guest — the arrival of 
the life-giving grape — scattering joy and merriment 
wherever he came. Something of this kind seems to 
have been the sentiment of the early Christian com- 
munity. No doubt the monastic and the Puritan ele- 
ment existed amongst them in germ, and showed itself in 
the writings even of the second and third centuries ; but 
it is evident from these paintings that it occupied a very 
subordinate place in the popular mind of the early Ro- 
man Christians. 



288 THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII. 

It may be that the hideous associations which north- 
ern drunkenness has imported into these festive em- 
blems have rendered impossible to modern times a sym- 
bol which in earlier days and in southern countries was 
still permissible. It may be that after the disappoint- 
ments, controversies, persecutions, mistakes, scandals, 
follies of Christendom for the last seventeen centuries, it 
is impossible to imagine that buoyant heart, that hope- 
ful spirit, which then was easy and natural. Not the 
less, however, is it instructive for us to see the joyous 
gayety, the innocent Bacchanalia, with which our first 
fathers started in the da\\^n of that journey which has 
since been so often overcast. 

(5.) There was, however, perhaps a deeper thought 
in this figure. When we see the vine, with its purple 
itsdiffu- clusters spreading itself over the roof of the 
^^°^" chamber, it is difiicult not to feel that the 

early Christians had before their minds the recollection 
of the Parable of " The Vine and the Branches." When 
we remark the juice of the grapes streaming from the 
feet of those who tread the wine-press — the figures, fre- 
quent in the Jewish Scriptures, represented in colossal 
form over the portal of the Jewish Temple, carved still 
on Jewish sepulchres — it is the same image which cul- 
minated to the Christian mind in that sacred apologue. 
It was the account which they gave to themselves and to 
others of the benefits of their new religion. What they 
valued, what they felt, was a new moral influence, a new 
life stealing through their veins, a new health imparted 
to their frames, a new courage breathing in their faces, 
like wine to a weary laborer, like sap in the hundred 
branches of a spreading tree, like juice in the thousand 
clusters of a spreading vine. 

Where this life was, there was the sign of their relig- 
ion. By what special channel it came, whether through 



Chap. XIIL] THE EPITAPHS. 289 

books or treatises, whether through bishops or presby- 
ters, whether through this doctrine or that, this the 
paintings in the Catacombs — at least in the earliest 
Catacombs — do not tell as. All that we see is the 
Good Shepherd on one side, and the spreading Vine and 
joyous vintage on the other side. It was an influence as 
subtle, as persuasive, as difficult to fix into one uniform 
groove, as what we call the influence of love, or mar- 
riage, or law, or civilization. 

(c.) The figure of the Vine, as seen in the Catacombs, 
suggests perhaps one other idea — the idea of what was 
tlien meant by Christian unity. The branches 
of the vine are infinite ; no other plant throws 
out so many ramifications which twist and clasp and 
turn and hang and creep and rise and fall in so many 
festoons and roots and clusters and branches, over trees 
and houses ; sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes 
graceful, sometimes deformed, sometimes straight, some- 
times crooked. But in all there is the same life-giving 
juice, the same delicious fragrance. That is the figure 
of the Vine as we see it in the tomb of St. Domitilla. 
It is a likeness — whether intended or not — of the 
variety and unity of Christian goodness. 

V. There is one other subject on which we should 
naturally expect in these Catacombs to learn some tid- 
ings of the belief of the early Christians, and rpj^^ ^pj. 
that is concerning the future life and the de- **^^^* 
parted. This we gather partly from their paintings, but 
chiefly from their epitaphs. 

In these representations there are three such charac- 
teristics, agreeing with what we have already noticed. 

1. First, there is the same simplicity. If for a moment 
we look at the paintings of this subject, in what form are 
the souls of the dead presented to us ? Almost ^^.^^ .j^^. 
always in the form of little birds ; sometimes p^'""^*^* 

-19 



290 THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII. 

witli bright, gay plumage — peacocks, pheasants, and the 
like ; more often as doves. There was here, no doubt, 
the childlike thought, that the soul of man is like a bird 
of passage, which nestles here in the outward frame of 
flesh for a time, and then flies away beyond the sea to 
some brighter, warmer home. There was the thought 
that the Christian soul ought to be like " the birds of 
the air," according to the Gospel phrase, without anx- 
iety or solicitude. There was the thought also that each 
Christian soul is, like the dove, a messenger of peace, is 
part of the heavenly brood which flies upwards towards 
that Spirit of which it is the emanation and the like- 
ness. 

And when we come to the epitaphs of the ancient 
dead we find still the same simple feeling. There is no 
long description ; till the third century, not even the 
date ; no formal profession of belief ; no catalogue either 
of merits or demerits ; but, generally speaking, one short 
word to tell of the tender sentiment of natural affec- 
tion : " My most sweet child ; " " My most sweet wife ; " 
" My most dear husband ; " " My innocent dove ; " " My 
well-deserving father or mother ; " " Innocent little 
lamb ; " "Such and such an one lived together, without 
any complaint or quarrel, without taking or giving of- 
fence." 

Amongst all the epitaphs and monuments of West- 
minster Abbe}^, there is one, and one only, which re- 
minds us of the Catacombs. It is that of a little York- 
shire girl, who lies in the cloisters, and who died in the 
midst of the troubles which preceded the Revolution of 
1688. There are just the dates, and the name of her 
brother, whom the parents had lost a short time before, 
and who is buried in St. Helen's Church, in York : and 
all that they say of her or of the crisis of the age is, 
^''Jane lAster^ dear child.'''' That is exactly like the Cat- 



Chap. Xin.] THE EPITAPHS. 291 

acombs; that is the perpetual sympathy of human nat- 
ure. In these words the whole Christian world, from 
the nineteenth century to the first, " is kin." 

And if, in the outpouring of this natural affection, 
the survivors from time to time refuse to lose sight of 
the dead in the other world, it is still to be remarked 
that the communion with them rests on this family 
bond, and on none other. There is a touching devotional 
poem of modern date, which seems more than any other 
to recall the peculiar feeling of the early Catacombs in 
this respect. It is that of the Russian poet Chamiakoff, 
on visiting the nursery of his dead children : — 

" Time was when I loved at still midnight to come, 
My children, to see you asleep in your room ; 
Dear children, at that same still midnight do ye, 
As I once prayed for you, now in turn pray for me." i 

2. But besides these expressions of natural affection, 
there are two expressions of religious devotion which con- 
stantly occur. The first is repeated almost in r^,^^ -^^^^^ ^j 
every epitaph — " In peace''' It is the phrase ^'^^*' 
which the early Christians took from the Jews. In the 
Jewish Catacombs it is found in the Hebrew word — 
" Shalom.^' As the expressions just quoted indicate the 
link between the belief of the early Christians and the 
natural feelings of the human heart, so does this indi- 
cate the link between their belief and that of ancient 
Judaism. But its earnest reiteration gives a special force 
to it. It conveys their assurance that whatever else was 
the other world, it was at least a world of rest. The 
wars, the jealousies, the jars, the contentions, the misap- 
prehensions, the disputes of the Roman Empire and of 
the Christian Church, would there at last be finished. 
"Sleep " — " repose" — is the word — indefinite, but 

1 I have ventured to borrow the translation of the Rev. William Palmer. 



292 THE EOMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII. 

sufficient — for the condition of their departed friends. 
The burial-places of the world henceforth became what 
they were first called in the Catacombs — or at least first ^ 
called on an extensive scale — " cemeteries," that is, 
" sleeping-places." 

3. There is one other word which occurs frequently 
after the mention of "peace," and that is, '-'- Live in 
The idea of Grod^^ or " thou shalt livc in God," or " may- 

This is the yet farther step from simple innocence, from 
Oriental resignation. That is the early Christians' ex- 
]Dression of the ground of their belief in immortality. 
We might perhaps have expected some more precise allu- 
sion to the sacred name by which they were especially 
called, or to some of those Gospel stories of which we do, 
at least in the third century, find representations in their 
pictures. But in these epitaphs it is not so. They 
were content in the written expression of their belief to 
repose their hopes in the highest name of all. 

These simple words — " Vive in Deo " and " Vivas in 
Deo"" — sometimes it is " Vive in Bono'^ — describe 
what to them was the object and the ground of their ex- 
istence for the first three centuries. They last appear 
in the year 330, and after that appear no more again till 
quite modern times, in express imitation of them, as for 
example in the beautiful epitaph on the late lamented 
Duke John of Torlonia, in the Church of St. John Lat- 
eran. As a general rule, nowhere now, either in Roman 
Catholic or Protestant churches, do we ever see these 
once universal expressions of the ancient hope. They 
have been superseded by more definite, more detailed, 
more positive statements. Perhaps if they were now 
used they would be thought Deistic, or Theistic, or Pan- 

1 Mommsen says that the words KotiJ.-qTrjpi.ov, accubltorium, are not exclusively 
Christian. But for practical purposes they are so. 



Chap. XIII.] CONCLUSION. 293 

theistic, or Atheistic. But "vvhen we reflect upon tliem, 
they run very deep down into the heart both of philoso- 
phy and of Christianity. They express the hope that, 
because the Supreme Good lives forever, all that is good 
and true will live forever also. They express the hope 
that because the Universal Father lives forever, we can 
safely trust into His loving hands the souls of those whom 
we have loved, and whom He, we cannot help believing, 
has loved also. 

Perhaps the more we think of this ancient style of 
epitaph, we shall find that it is not the less true because 
now it is now never written ; not the less consoling be- 
cause it is so ancient ; not the less comprehensive because 
it is so simple, so short, and so childlike. 

VI. Let us briefly sum up what has been said on these 
representations of the early Christian belief. 

1. They differ widely in proportion, in selection, and 
in character, from the representations of belief which 
we find in the contemporaneous Christian authors, and 
thus give us a striking example of the divergence whicli 
often exists between the actual living, popular belief, 
and that which we find in books. They differ also in 
the same respects, though even more widely, from the 
forms adopted, not only by ourselves, but by the whole 
of Christendom, for nearly fifteen hundred years. They 
show, what it is never without interest to observe, the 
immense divergence in outward expression of belief be- 
tween those ages and our own. The forms which we 
use were unused by them, and the forms which they 
used, for the most part are unused by us. 

2. The substance of the faith which these forms ex- 
pressed is such as, when it is put before us, we at once 
recognize to be true. 

It might sometimes be worth while to ask whether 
what are called attacks or defences of our religion are 



294 THE EOMAN CATACOMBS. [Chap. XIII. 

directed in the slightest degree for or against the ideas 
which, as we have seen, constitute the chief materials 
of the faith and life of the early Chistians. In a well- 
known work of Strauss, entitled " The Old and New 
Belief," there is an elaborate attack on what the writer 
calls " the Old Belief." Of the various articles of that 
*' old belief " which he enumerates, hardly one appears 
conspicuously in the Catacombs. Of the special forms 
of belief which appear in the Catacombs, hardly one is 
mentioned in the catalogue of doctrines so vehemently 
assailed in that work. The belief of the Catacombs, as 
a general rule, is not that which is either defended by 
modern theologians ^ or attacked by modern sceptics. 

3. When we reflect that these same ideas which form 
the all-sufficing creed of the early Church are not openly 
disputed by any Church or sect in Christendom, it may 
be worth wliile to ask whether, after all, there is any- 
thing ver}^ absurd in supposing that ail Christians have 
something in common with each other. The pictures 
of the Good Shepherd and of the Vine, the devotional 
language of the epitaphs — whether we call them secta- 
rian or unsectarian, denominational or undenominational 
— have not been watchwords of parties ; no public meet- 
ings have been held for defending or abolishing them, no 
persecutions or prosecutions have been set on foot to put 
them down or to set them up. And yet it is certain 
that, by the early Christians, they were not thought 
vague, fleeting, unsubstantial, colorless, but were the 
food of their daily lives, their hope under the severest 
trials, the dogma of doguias, if we choose so to call them, 
the creed of their creed, because the very life of their 
life. 

1 In the Lateran Museum are two or three compartments of epitaphs classed 
under the head of "illustrations of dogmas.'''' But there is only one doubtful 
example of any passage relating to a dogma controverted by any Christian 
Church. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CEEED OF THE EARLY CHEISTIANS. 

The formula into which the early Christian belief 
shaped itself has since grown up into the various creeds 
which have been adopted by the Christian Church. The 
two most widely known are that of Chalcedon, commonly 
called the Nicene Creed, and that of the Roman Church, 
commonly called the Apostles'. The first is that which 
pervaded the Eastern Church. Its original form was 
that drawn up at Nicaea on the basis of the creed of 
Csesarea produced by Eusebius. Large additions were 
made to it to introduce the dogmatical question discussed 
in the Nicene Council. It concluded with anathemas on 
all who pronounced the Son to be of a different Hypos- 
tasis from the Father. Another Creed much resembling 
this, but with extensive additions at the close, and with 
an omission of the anathemas, was said to have been 
made at the Coustantinopolitan Council, but was first 
proclaimed at the Council of Chalcedon.^ It underwent 
a yet further change in the West from the adoption of 
the clause which states that the Holy Ghost proceeds 
from the Son, as well as from the Father. The creed of 
the Roman Church came to be called " the Apostles' 
Creed," from the fable that the twelve Apostles had 
each of them contributed a clause. It was successively 
enlarged. First was added the " Remission of Sins," 
next " the Life Eternal." Then came ^ the " Resur- 

1 See Chapter XVI. 

2 This clause unquestionably conveys the belief, so emphatically contradicted 
by St. Paul (1 Cor. xv. 35, 36, 50), of the Resurrection of the corporeal frame. 



296 THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIV. 

rection of the Flesh." Lastly was incorporated the " De- 
scent ^ into Hell," and the " Communion of the Saints." 
It is observable that the Creed, whether in its Eastern or 
its Western form, leaves out of view altogether such 
questions as the necessity of Episcopal succession, the 
origin and use of the Sacraments, the honor due to the 
Virgin Mary, the doctrine of Substitution, the doctrine 
of Predestination, the doctrine of Justification, the doc- 
trine of the Pope's authority. These may be important 
and valuable, but they are not in any sense part of the 
authorized creed of the early Christians. The doctrine 
of Baptism appears in the Constantinopolitan Creed, but 
merely in the form of a protest against its repetition. 
The doctrine of Justification might possibly be connected 
with " the Forgiveness of Sins," but no theory is ex- 
pressed on the subject. Again, most of the successive 
clauses were added for purposes peculiar to that age, and 
run, for the most part, into accidental questions which 
had arisen in the Church. The Conception, the Descent 
into Hell, the Communion of Saints, the Resurrection of 
the Flesh, are found only in the Western, not. in the 
original Nicene Creed. The controversial expressions 
respecting the Hypostasis and the Essence of the Divin- 
ity are found only in the Eastern, not in the Western 
Creed. 

But there is one point which the two Creeds both 
have in common. It is the framework on which the}^ 
are formed. That framework is the simple expression 

It has been softened in the modern rendering into the "Resurrection of the 
Body," which, although still open to misconception, is capable of the spiritual 
sense of the Apostle. But in the Baptismal Service the original clause is pre- 
sented in its peculiarly offensive form. 

1 This was perhaps orio;ina!ly a synonym for " He was buried," as it occurs 
in those versions of the Creed where the burial is omitted. But it soon came to 
be used as the expression for that vast system — partly of fantastic superstition, 
partly of valuable truth — involved in the deliverance of the early Patriarchs by 
the entrance of the Saviour into the world of shades. 



Chap. XIV.] THE FATHER. 297 

of faith used in the Baptism of the early Christians. It 
is taken from the First Gospel,^ and it consists of " the 
name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 

I. It is proposed to ask, in the first instance, the Bib- 
lical meaning of the words. In the hymn Quicunque vulf, 
as in Dean Swift's celebrated " Sermon on the Trinity," 
there is no light whatever thrown on their signification. 
They are used like algebraic symbols, which would be 
equally appropriate if they were inverted, or if other 
words were substituted for them. They give no answer 
to the question what in the minds of the early Christians 
they represented. 

1. What, then, is meant in the Bible — what in the 
experience of thoughtful men — by the name of Th'e 
Father ? In one word it expresses to us the whole faith 
of what we call Natural Religion. We see it in all re- 
ligions. "Not only is the omnipresence of something 
which passes comprehension, that most distinct belief 
which is common to all religions, which becomes the more 
distinct in proportion as things develop, and which re- 
mains after their discordant elements have been can- 
celled ; but it is that belief which the most unsparing 
criticism leaves unquestionable, or rather makes ever 
clearer. It has nothing to fear from the most inexorable 
logic; but, on the contrary, is a belief which the most 
inexorable logic shows to be more profoundly true than 
any religion supposes." ^ As mankind increases in civil- 
ization, there is an increasing perception of order, design, 
and good- will towards the living creatures which animate 

^ It is not certain that in early times this formula was in use. The first pro- 
fession of belief was only in the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts ii. 38, viii. 12, 
16, X. 48, xix. 5). In later times, Cyprian (Ep. Ixiii.), the Council of Frejiis, 
and Pope Nicholas the First acknowledged the validity of this form. Still it 
soon superseded the profession of belief in Jesus Christ, and in the second cen- 
tury had become universal. (See Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, i. 162.) 

2 Herbert Spencer, First Principles, p. 45. 



i298 THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIV. 

it. Often, it is true, we cannot trace any such design ; 
but whenever we can, the impression left upon us is the 
sense of a Single, Wise, Beneficent Mind. And in our 
own hearts and consciences we feel an instinct corre- 
sponding to this — a voice, a faculty, that seems to refer 
us to a Higher Power than ourselves, and to point to 
some Invisible Sovereign Will, like to that which we see 
impressed on the natural world. And, further, the 
more we think of the Supreme, the more we try to imagine 
what His feelings are towards us — the more our idea of 
Him becomes fixed as in the one simple, all-embracing 
word that He is the Father. The word itself has been 
given to us by Christ. It is the peculiar revelation of the 
iTivine nature made by Christ Himself. Whereas it is 
used three times in the Old Testament, it is used two 
hundred times in the New. Bat it was the confirma- 
tion of what was called by Tertullian the testimony of 
the naturally Christian soul — testimonium animce nat- 
uraliter Christiance. The Greek expression of " the 
Father of Gods and men " is an approach tow^ards it. 
There may be much in the dealings of the Supreme and 
Eternal that we do not understand ; as there is much in 
the dealings of an earthly father that his earthly children 
cannot understand. Yet still to be assured that there is 
One above us whose praise is above any human praise — 
who sees us as we really are — who has our welfare at 
heart in all the various dispensations which befall us — 
whose wide-embracing justice and long-suffering and en- 
durance we all may strive to obtain — this is the foun- 
dation with which everything in all subsequent religion 
must be made to agree. " One thing alone is certain : 
the Fatherly smile which every now and then gleams 
through Nature, bearing witness that an Eye looks down 
upon us, that a Heart follows us." ^ To strive to be per- 

1 Kenan's Eibbert Lectures for 1880, p. 202. 



Chap. XIV.] THE SON. 299 

feet as our Father is perfect is the greatest effort which 
the human soul can place before itself. To repose upon 
this perfection is the greatest support which in sorrow 
and weakness it can have in making those efforts. This 
is the expression of Natural Religion. This is the reve- 
lation of God the Father. 

2. What is meant by the name of the Son ? 

It has often happened that the conception of Natural 
Religion becomes faint and dim. " The being of a God 
is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence. 
Yet when I look out of myself into the world of men, I 
see a sight which fills me with unspeakable distress. The 
world of men seems simply to give the lie to that great 
truth of which my whole being is so full. If I looked 
into a mirror and did not see my face, I should experience 
the same sort of difficulty that actually comes upon me 
when I look into this living busy world and see no reflec- 
tion of its Creator." ^ How is this difficulty to be met? 
How shall we regain in the world of men the idea which 
the world of Nature has suggested to us ? How shall the 
dim remembrance of our Universal Father be so brought 
home to us as that we shall not forget it or lose it ? This 
is the object of the Second Sacred Name by which God is 
revealed to us. As in the name of the Father we have 
Natural Religion — the Faith of the Natural Conscience 
— so in the name of the Son we have Historical Religion, 
or the Faith of the Christian Church. As " the Father " 
represents to us God in Nature, God in the heavenly or 
ideal world — so the name of " the Son " represents to us 
God in History, God in the character of man, God above 
all, in the Person of Jesus Christ. We know how even 
in earthly relationships an absent father, a departed 
father, is brought before our recollections in the appear- 
ance of a living, present son, especially in a son who by 

1 Dr. Newman, Apologia, p. 2il. 



300 THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIV. 

the distinguishing features of his mind or of his person is 
a real likeness of his father. We know also how in the 
case of those whom we have never seen at all there is still 
a means of communication with them through reading 
their letters, their works, their words. So it is in this 
second great disclosure of the Being of God. If some- 
times we find that Nature gives us an uncertain sound of 
the dealings of God with his creatures, if we find a dif- 
ficulty in imagining what is the exact character that God 
most approves, we ma}' be reassured, strengthened, fixed, 
by hearing or reading of Jesus Christ. The Mahometan 
rightly objects to the introduction of the paternal and 
filial relations into the idea of God, when they are inter- 
preted in the gross and literal sense. But in the moral 
and spiritual sense it is true that the kindness, tenderness, 
and wisdom we find in Jesus Christ is the reflection of 
the same kindness, tenderness, and wisdom that we rec- 
ognize in the governance of the universe. His life is the 
Word, the speech that comes to us out of that eternal 
silence which surrounds the Unseen Divinity. He is the 
Second Conscience, the external Conscience, reflecting, 
as it were, and steadying the conscience within each of 
us. And wheresoever in history the same likeness is, or 
has been, in any degree reproduced in human character, 
there and in that proportion is the same effect produced. 
There and in that proportion is the Word which speaks 
through every word of human wisdom, and the Light 
which lightens with its, own radiance every human act of 
righteousness and of goodness. In the Homeric represen- 
tations of Divinity and of Humanity, what most strikes us 
is that, whereas the human characters are, in their meas- 
ure, winning, attractive, heroic, the divine characters are 
capricious, cruel, revengeful, sensual. Such an inversion 
of the true standard is rectified by the identification of 
the Divine nature with the character of Christ. If in 



Chap. XIV.] THE SON. 301 

Christ the highest human virtues are exalted to their 
highest pitch, this teaches us that, according to the Chris- 
tian view, in the Divine nature these same virtues are 
still to be found. If cruelty, caprice, revenge, are out of 
place in Christ, tlie.y are equally out of place in God. To 
believe in the name of Christ, in the name of the Son, is 
to believe that God is above all other qualities a Moral 
Being — a Being not merely of power and wisdom, but a 
Being of tender compassion, of boundless charity, of dis- 
criminating tenderness. To believe in the name of Christ 
is to believe that no other approach to God exists except 
through those same qualities of justice, truth, and love 
which make up the mind of Christ. " Ye believe in God, 
believe also in me," is given as His own farewell address. 
Ye believe in the Father, ye believe in Religion gener- 
ally ; believe also in the Son, the Christ. For this is the 
form in which the Divine Nature has been made most 
palpably known to the world, in flesh and blood, in facts 
and words, in life and death. This is the claim that 
Christianity and Christendom have upon us, with all 
their infinite varieties of institutions, ordinances, arts, 
laws, liberties, charities — that they spring forth directly 
or indirectly from the highest earthly manifestation of 
Our Unseen Eternal Father. 

The amplifications in the Eastern and Western Creeds 
have, it is true, but a very slight bearing on the nature 
of the Divine Revelation in Jesus Christ. They do not 
touch at all (except in the expression '' Light of Light ") 
on the moral, which is the only important, aspect of the 
doctrine. They entirely (as was observed many years 
ago by Bishop Thirlwall) ''miss the point." Bishop 
Pearson, in his elaborate dissertation on this article of 
the Creed, is wholly silent on this subject. These ex- 
positions do not tell us whether the Being of whom they 
speak was good or wicked, mild or fierce, truthful or un- 



302 THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIV. 

truthful. The Eastern Creed by its introduction of the 
expressions "for us," " for our salvation," to a certain 
extent conveys the idea that the good of man was the pur- 
pose for which He lived and suffered. But the Western 
Creed does not contain even these expressions. The Fif- 
teenth of the XXXIX. Articles, and by implication a 
single phrase in the Seventeenth, are the only ones which 
express any belief in the moral excellence of Christ. 
The Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Thirty-first, which 
speak on the general subject of His person, are silent on 
this aspect. The clause which related to the moral side 
of the Saviour's character, " Who lived amongst men," 
had been in the Palestine Creed, but was struck out of 
the Eastern Creed at the Council of Mcsea. But never- 
theless the original form of the belief in " the only Son " 
remains intact and acknowledged by all. It contains 
nothing contrary to His moral perfections ; and it may 
admit them all. We take the story of the Gospels as it 
has appeared to Voltaire, Rousseau, Goethe. We take 
it in those parts which contain least matter for doubts 
and difiiculties. We speak of "the method " and " the 
secret " of Jesus as they have been presented to us in the 
most modern works. *' The origin of Christianity forms 
the most heroic episode of the history of humanity. . . . 
Never was the religious consciousness more eminently 
creative ; never did it lay down with more absolute au- 
thority the law of the future." ^ It is important to notice 
that the testimonies to the greatness of this historical 
revelation are not confined to the ordinary writers on the 
subject, but are even more powerfully expressed in those 
who are above the slightest suspicion of any theological 
bias. 

It is not the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, it is 
Matthew Arnold, who affirms, — 

1 Kenan's Hihhert Lectures for 1880, p. 8. 



Chap. XIV.] THE SON. 303 

"Try all the ways to righteousness you can think of, and you 
will find that no way brings you to it except the way of Jesus, 
but that this way does bring you to it." 

It is not Bishop Liglitfoot, it is the author of '* Super- 
natural Religion," who asserts, — 

"The teaching of Jesus carried morality to the sublimest 
point attained, or even attainable by humanity. The influence 
of His spiritual religion has been rendered doubly great by the 
unparalleled purity and elevation of His own character. Sur- 
passing in His sublime simplicity and earnestness the moral 
grandeur of Chakya-Mouni, and putting to the blush the some- 
times sullied, though generally admirable, teaching of Socrates 
and Plato, and the whole round of Greek philosophers. He pre- 
sented the rare spectacle of a life, so far as we can estimate it, 
uniformly noble and consistent with His own lofty principles, 
so that the "imitation of Christ" has become almost the final 
word in the preaching of His religion, and must continue to be 
one of the most powerful elements of its permanence." 

It is not Lord Shaftesbury, it is the author of " Ecce 
Homo," who says, — 

" The story of His life will always remain the one record in 
which the moral perfection of man stands revealed in its root 
and unity, the hidden spring made palpably manifest by which 
the whole machine is moved. And as, in the will of God, this 
unique man was elected to a unique sorrow, and holds as un- 
disputed a sovereignty in suffering as in self-devotion, all lesser 
examples and lives will forever hold a subordinate place, and 
serve chiefly to reflect light on the central and original example." 

It is no Bampton lecturer, it is John Stuart Mill, who 

says, — 

" It is the God incarnate, more than the God of the Jews or 
of Nature, who, being idealized, has taken so great and salutary 
a hold on the modern mind. And whatever else may be taken 
away from us by rational criticism, Christ is still left, — a 
unique figure, not more unlike all His precursors than all His 



304 THE CKEED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIV. 

followers, even those who had the direct benefit of His teach- 



It is not Lacordaire, it is Ren an, who affirms, — 

" In Jesus was condensed all that is good and elevated in our 

nature. . . . God is in Him. He feels Himself with God, and 

He draws from His own heart what He tells of His Father. 

He lives in the bosom of God by the intercommunion of every 

moment." ^ 

Those few years in which that Life was lived on earth 
gathered up all the historical expressions of religion be- 
fore and after into one supreme focus. The " Word made 
flesh" was the union of religion and morality, was the 
declaration that in the highest sense the Image of Man 
was made after the Image of God. " Sterna sapientia 
sese in omnibus rebus, maxime in humana mente, om- 
nium maxime in Christo Jesu manifestavit." ^ In the 
gallery through which, in Goethe's " Wilhelm Meister," 
the student is led to understand the origin and meaning 
of religion, he is taught to see in the child which looks 
upwards the reverence for that which is above us — that 
is, the worship of the Father. " This religion we denom- 
inate the Ethnic ; it is the religion of the nations, and 
the first happy deliverance from a degrading fear." He 
is taught to see in the child which looks downwards- the 
reverence for that which is beneath us. "This we name 
the Christian. What a task it was .... to recognize 
humility and poverty, mockery and despising, disgrace 
and wretchedness and suffering — to recognize these 
things as divine." This is the value of what we call His- 
torical Religion. This is the eternal, never-dying truth 
of the sacred name of the Son. 

1 This series of extracts is quoted from an admirable sermon bv Mr. Mnir, 
preached before the Synod of Lothian and Tweeddale November 5, 1879. 

2 Spinoza, Ep. xxi. vol. iii. p. 195. 



Chap. XIV.] THE SPIRIT. 305 

3. But there is yet a third manifestation of God. 
Natural religion may become vague and abstract. His- 
torical religion may become, as it often has become, per- 
verted, distorted, exhausted, formalized ; its external 
proofs may become dubious, its inner meaning may be 
almost lost. There have been oftentimes Christians who 
were not like Christ — a Christianity which was not the 
religion of Christ. But there is yet another aspect of 
the Divine Nature. Besides the reverence for that which 
is above us, and the reverence for that which is beneath 
us, there is also the reverence for that which is within 
us. There is yet (if we may venture to vary Goethe's 
parable) another form of Religion, and that is Spiritual 
Religion. As the name of the Father represents to us 
God in Nature, as the name of the Son represents to us 
God in Histor}^, so the name of the Holy Ghost repre- 
sents to us God in our own hearts and spirits and con- 
sciences. This is the still, small voice — stillest and 
smallest, yet loudest and strongest of all — which, even 
more than the wonders of nature or the wonders of his- 
tory, brings us into the nearest harmony with Him who 
is a Spirit — who, when His closest communion with man 
is described, can only be described as the Spirit plead- 
ing with, and dwelling in, our spirit. When Theodore 
Parker took up a stone to throw at a tortoise in a pond, 
he felt himself restrained by something within him. He 
went home and asked his mother what that something 
was. She told him that this something was what was 
commonly called conscience, but she preferred to call it 
the voice of God within him. This, he said, was the 
turning-point in his life, and this was his mode of accept- 
ing the truth of the Divinity of the Eternal Spirit that 
speaks to our spirits. When Arnold entered with all. 
the ardor of a great and generous nature into the beauty 
of the natural world, he added : " If we feel thrilling 

20 



306 THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIV. 

through us the sense of this natural beauty, what ought 
to be. our sense of moral beauty, — of humbleness, and 
truth, and self-devotion, and love ? Much more beauti- 
ful, because more truly, made after God's image, are the 
forms and colors of kind and wise and holy thoughts and 
words and actions — more truly beautiful is one hour of 
an aged peasant's patient cheerfulness and faith than the 
most glorious scene which this earth can show. For this 
moral beauty is actually, so to speak, God Plimself, and 
not merely His work. His living and conscious servants 
are — it is permitted us to say so — the temples of which 
the light is God himself." 

What is here said of the greatness of the revelation of 
God in the moral and spiritual sphere over His revela- 
tion in the physical world, is true in a measure of its 
greatness over His revelation in any outward form or fact, 
or ordinance or word. To enter fully into the signifi- 
cance of what is sometimes called the Dispensation of 
the Holy Spirit, we must grasp the full conception of 
what in the Bible is meant by that sacred word, used in 
varying yet homogeneous senses, and all equally intended 
by the Sacred Name of which we are speaking. It 
means the Inspiring Breath,^ without which all mere 
forms and facts are dead, and by which all intellectual 
and moral energy lives. It means ^ the inward spirit as 
•opposed to the outward letter. It means the freedom of 
the spirit, which blows like the air of heaven where it 
listeth, and which, wherever it prevails, gives liberty.^ 
It means the power and energy of the spirit, which rises 
above the * weakness and weariness of the flesh — which, 
in the great movements of Providence,^ like a mighty 

1 Gen. i. 2, vi. 3; Exod. xxxv. 31; Judges xi. 29, xiii. 25, xiv. 6, 19, xv. 
14; Isa. Ixi. 1; Eph. i. 12, iii. 12, xxxiii. 14; Luke iv. 18; John i. 33. 

2 Psalm li. 10, 11, 12 ; 2 Cor. iii. 6. 

3 John iii. 8 ; 2 Cor. iii. 28. 

4 Matt. xxvi. 41. 
6 Acts ii. 4, 17. 



Chap. XIV.] ITS UNIVERSALITY. 307 

rushing wind, gives life and vigor to the human soul and 
to the human race. 

" One accent of the Holy Ghost 
The heedless world has never lost." 

To believe in a Presence ^ within us pleading with our 
prayers, groaning with our groans, aspiring with our 
aspirations — to believe in the Divine supremacy of con- 
science — to believe that the spirit is above the letter — 
to believe that the substance is above the form ^ — to 
believe that the meaning is more important than the 
words — to believe that truth is greater than authority 
or fashion or imagination,^ and will at last prevail — to 
believe that goodness and justice and love are the bonds 
of perfectness,^ without which whosoever liveth is counted 
dead though he live, and which bind together those who 
are divided in all other things whatsoever — this, accord- 
ing to the Biblical uses of the word, is involved in the 
expression : " I believe in the Holy Ghost." In this 
sense there is a close connection between the later ad- 
ditions of the Creeds and the original article on which 
they depend. The Universal Church, the Forgiveness of 
Sins, are direct results of the influence of the Divine 
Spirit on the heart of man. The hope of '" the Resur- 
rection of the Dead and of the Life of the World to 
Come," as expressed in the Eastern Creed, are the best 
expressions of its vitality. The Communion of Saints 
in the Western Creed is a beautiful expression of its per- 
vasive force. Even the untoward expression, " the Res- 
urrection of the flesh," may be taken as an awkward in- 
dication of the same aspiration for the triumph of mind 
over matter. 

11. Such is the significance of these three Sacred 
Names as we consider them apart. Let us now consider 

1 Rom. viii. 16, 26; Eph. ii. 18. 

2 John iv. 25. 

8 Gal. V. 22; Eph. v. 9. 

4 John xiv. 17, 26; xv. 26; xvi. 13. 



808 THE CREED OF THE EAKLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIV. 

what is to be learned from their being thus made the 
summary of Religion. * 

1. First it may be observed that there is this in com- 
mon between the Biblical and the scholastic represen- 
tations of the doctrine of the Trinity. The^ express 
to us the comprehensiveness and diversity of the Divine 
Essence. We might perhaps have thought that as God 
is One, so there could be only one mode of conceiving 
Him, one mode of approaching Him. But the Bible, 
when taken from first to last and in all its parts, tells us 
that there is yet a greater, wider view. The nature of 
God is vaster and more complex than can be embraced in 
any single formula. As in His dealings with men gen- 
erally, it has been truly said that 

" God doth fulfil Himself in many ways, 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world," 

SO out of these many ways and many names we learn from 
the Bible that there are especially these three great rev- 
elations, these three ways in which He can be approached. 
None of them is to be set aside. It is true that the 
threefold name of which we are speaking is never in the 
Bible brought forward in the form of an unintelligible 
mystery. It is certain that the only place ^ where it is 
put before us as an arithmetical enigma is now known to 
be spurious. Yet it is still the fact that the indefinite 
description of the Power that governs all things is a 
wholesome rebuke to that readiness to dispose of the 
whole question of the Divine nature, as if God were a 
man, a person like ourselves. The hymn of Reginald 
Heber, which is one of the few in which the feeling of 
the poet and the scholar is interwoven with the strains 
of simple devotion — 

"Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty" — 

refuses to lend itself to any anthropomorphic specula- 
tions, and takes refuge in abstractions as much with- 

1 1 John V. 7. 



Chap. XIV.] ITS SEPARATE PARTS. 309 

drawn from the ordinary figures of human speech and 
metaphor, as if it had been composed by Kant or Hegeh 
To acknowledge this triple form of revelation, to ac- 
knowledge this complex aspect of the Deity, as it runs 
through the multiform expressions of the Bible — saves, 
as it were, the awe, the reverence due to the Almighty 
Ruler of the universe, tends to preserve the balance of 
truth from any partial or polemical bias, presents to us 
not a meagre, fragmentary view of only one part of the 
Divine Mind, but a wide, catholic summary of the whole, 
so far as nature, history, and experience permit. If we 
cease to think of the Universal Father, we become nar- 
row and exclusive. If we cease to think of the Founder 
of Christianity and of the grandeur of Christendom, we 
lose our hold on the great historic events which have 
swayed the hopes and affections of man in the highest 
moments of human progress. If we cease to think of 
the Spirit, we lose the inmost meaning of Creed and 
Prayer, of Church and Bible, of human character, and 
of vital religion. In that apologue of Goethe before 
quoted, when the inquiring student asks his guides who 
have shown him the three forms of reverence, " To which 
of these religions do you adhere ? " "To all the three," 
they reply, '' for in their union they produce the true 
religion, which has been adopted, though unconsciously, 
by a great part of the world." " How, then, and where ? " 
exclaimed the inquirer. " In the Creed," replied they. 
"For the first article is ethnic, and belongs to all na- 
tions. The second is Christian, and belongs to those 
struggling with affliction, glorified in affliction. The 
thiid teaches us an inspired communion of saints. And 
should not the three Divine Persons ^ justly be consid- 
ered as in the his^hest sense One ? " 

i Goethe probably used this expression as the one that came nearest to hand. 
To make it correct, it must be taken, not in the modern sense of individual 
beings, but in the ancient sense of "Hypostasis," or "groundwork." 



310 THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIY. 

2. And yet on the otlier hand, when we pursue each 
of these sacred words into its own recesses, we may be 
thankful that we are thus allowed at times to look upon 
each as though each for the moment were the whole and 
entire name of which we are in search. There are in the 
sanctuaries of the old churches of the East on Mount 
Athos sacred pictures intended to represent the doctrine 
of the Trinity, in which, as the spectator stands at one 
side, he sees only the figure of Our Saviour on the Cross, 
as he stands on the other side he sees only the Heavenly 
Dove, as he stands in the front he sees only the Ancient 
of Days, the Eternal Father. So it is with the represen- 
tations of this truth in the Bible, and, we may add, in 
the experiences of religious life. 

Sometimes, as in the Old Testament, especially in the 
Psalms, we are alone with God, we trust in Him, we are 
His and He is ours. The feeling that He is our Father, 
and that we are His children, is all-sufficing. We need 
not be afraid so to think of Him. Whatever other dis- 
closures He has made of Himself are but the filling up of 
this vast outline. Whatever other belief we have or have 
not, cling to this. By this faith lived many in Jewish 
times, who obtained a good report, even when they had 
not received the promise. By this faith have lived many 
a devout sage and hero of the ancient would, whom He 
assuredly will not reject. So long as we have a hope 
that this Supreme Existence watches over the human 
race — so long as this great Ideal remains before us, the 
material world has not absorbed our whole being, has not 
obscured the whole horizon. 

Sometimes, again, as in the Gospels or in particular 
moments of life, we see no revelation of God except in the 
world of history. There are those to whom science is 
dumb, to whom nature is dark, but who find in the life 
of Jesus Christ all that they need. He is to them the all 



Chap. XIV.] ITS SEPARATE PARTS. 311 

in all, the True, the Holy, the express image of the 
Highest. We need not fear to trust Him. The danger 
hitherto has been not that we can venerate Him too 
much, or that we can think of Him too much. The er- 
ror of Christendom has far more usually been that it has 
not thought of him half enough — that it has put aside 
the mind of Christ, and taken in place thereof the mind 
of Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, great in their way, — but 
not the mind of Him of whom we read in Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John. Or if we should combine with 
the thought of Him the thought of others foremost in 
the religious history of mankind, we have His own com- 
mand to do so, so far as they are the likenesses of Him- 
self, or so far as they convey to us any sense of the un- 
seen world, or any lofty conception of human character. 
With the early Christian writers, we may believe that 
the Word, the Wisdom of God which appeared in its 
perfection in Jesus of Nazareth, had appeared in a meas- 
ure in the examples of virtue and wisdom w^iich had 
been seen before His coming. On the same principle we 
may apply this to those who have appeared since. He 
has Himself told us that in His true followers He is with 
mankind to the end of the world. In the holy life, in 
the courageous act, in the just law, is the Real Presence 
of Christ. Where these are, in proportion as they recall 
to us His divine excellence, there, far more than in any 
consecrated form or symbol, is the true worship due from 
a Christian to his Master. 

Sometimes, again, as in the Epistles, or in our own soli- 
tary communing with ourselves, all outward manifesta- 
tions of the Father and of the Son, of outward nature and 
of Christian communion, seem to be withdrawn, and the 
eye of our mind is fixed on the Spirit alone. Our light 
then seems to come not from without but from within, 
not from external evidence but from inward conviction. 



312 THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIV. 

That itself is a divine reyelation. For the Spirit is as 
tral}^ a manifestation of God as is the Son or the Father. 
The teaching of our own heart and conscience is enough. 
If we follow the promptings of truth and purity, of jus- 
tice and humilit}', sooner or later we shall come back to 
the same Original Source. The witness of the Spirit of 
all goodness is the same as the witness of the life of 
Jesus, the same as the witness of the works of God our 
Creator. 

8. This distinction, which applies to particular wants 
of the life of each man, may be especially traced in the 
successive stages of the spiritual growth of individuals and 
of the human race itself. There is a beautiful poem of a 
gifted German poet of this century, in which he describes 
his wanderings in the Hartz Mountains, and as he rests 
in the house of a mountain peasant, a little child, the 
daughter of the house, sits at his feet, and looks up in his 
troubled countenance, and asks, " Dost thou believe in 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost?" He makes 
answer in words which must be read in the original to 
see their full force. He says : " When I sat as a boy on 
my mother's knees, and learned from her to pray, I be- 
lieved on God the Father, who reigns aloft so great and 
good, who created the beautiful earth and the beautiful 
men and women that are upon it, who to sun and moon 
and stars foretold their appointed course. And when I 
grew a little older and bigger, then I understood more 
and more, then I took in new truth with my reason and 
my understanding, and I believed on the Son — the well-^ 
beloved Son, who in His love revealed to us what love is, 
and who for His reward, as always happens, was crucified 
by the senseless world. And now that I am grown up, 
and that I have read many books and travelled in many 
lands, my heart swells, and with all my heart I believe 
in the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God. It is this Spirit 



Chap. XIV.] ITS INNER MEANING. 313 

which works the greatest of miracles, and shall work 
greater miracles than we have yet seen. It is this Spirit 
which breaks down all the strongholds of oppression and 
sets the bondsmen free. It is this Spirit which heals old 
death-wounds and throws into the old law new life. 
Through this Spirit it is that all men become a race of 
nobles, equal in the sight of God. Through this Spirit 
are dispersed the black clouds and dark cobwebs that be- 
wilder our hearts and brains." 

"A thousand knights in armor clad 

Hath the Holy Ghost ordained, 
All His work and will to do, 

By His living force sustained. 
Bright their swords, their banners bright ; 
Who would not be ranked a knight. 

Foremost in that sacred host ? 
Oh, whate'er our race or creed. 
May we be such knights indeed, 

Soldiers of the Holy Ghost." 

TIL The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost will never cease to be the chief expression of 
Christian belief, and it has been endeavored to show 
what is the true meaning of them. The words probably 
from the earliest time fell short of this high signification. 
Even in the Bible they needed all the light which ex- 
perience could throw upon them to suggest the full ex- 
tent of the meaning of which they are capable. But it 
is believed that on the whole they contain or suggest 
thoughts of this kind, and that in this development of 
their meaning, more than in the scholastic systems built 
upon them or beside them, lies their true vitality. 

" Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt." 

The true interest of the collocation of these three words 
in the Baptismal formula instead of any others that 
might have found a place there, is not that the Christians 
of the second or third century attached to them their full 



314 THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. [Chap. XIV. 

depth of meaning, but that they are too deeply embedded 
in the Biblical records to have been effaced in those ages 
by any heterogeneous speculation, and that, when we 
come to ask their meaning, they yield a response which 
the course of time has rather strengthened than enfeebled. 
However trite and commonplace appear to us the truths 
involved in them, they were far from obvious to those 
early centuries, which worked upon them for the most 
part in senses quite unlike the profound religious revela- 
tions which are becoming to us so familiar. And then 
there still remains the universal and the deeper truth 
within. In Christianity nothing is of real concern ex- 
cept that which makes us wiser and better ; everything 
which does make us wiser and better is the very thing 
which Christianity intends. Therefore even in these 
three most sacred words there is yet, besides all the other 
meanings which we have found in them, the deepest and 
most sacred meaning of all — that which corresponds to 
them in the life of man. Many a one has repeated this 
Sacred Name, and yet never fulfilled in himself the 
truths which it conveys. Some have been unable to 
repeat it, and yet have grasped the substance which 
alone gives to it a spiritual value. What John Bunyan 
said on his death-bed concerning prayer is equally true 
of all religious forms : '' Let thy heart be without words 
rather than thy words without heart." Wherever we 
are taught to know and understand the real nature of the 
world in which our lot is cast, there is a testimony, how- 
ever humble, to the name of the Father ; wherever we 
are taught to know and admire the highest and best of 
human excellence, there is a testimony to the name of 
the Son ; wherever we learn the universal appreciation 
of such excellence, there is a testimony to the name of 
the Holy Ghost. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE lord's prayer. 

No one doubts that the Lord's Prayer entered into all 
the Liturgical observances of the Early Church. No one 
questions its fundamental value. 

1. First, let us observe the importance of having such a 
form at all as the Lord's Prayer left to us by the Founder 
of our faith. It was said once by a Scottish statesman, 
" Give to any one you like the making of a nation's laws 
— give me the making of their ballads and songs, and 
that will tell us the mind of the nation." So it might 
be said, " Give to any one you hke the making of a 
Church's creed — or a Church's decrees or rubrics — 
give me the making of its prayers, and that will tell us 
the mind of the Church or religious community." We 
have in this Prayer the one public universal prayer of 
Christendom. It contains the purest wishes, the high- 
est hopes, the tenderest aspirations which our Master put 
into the mouths of His followers. It is the rule of our 
worship, the guide of our inmost thoughts. This prayer 
on the whole has been accepted by all the Churches of 
the world. In the English Liturgy it is repeated in 
every single service — too often for purposes of edifica- 
tion. The reason evidently is because it was thought 
that no service could be complete without it. This is the 
excuse for what otherwise would seem to be a vain repe- 
tition. Again, it is used so frequently in the Roman 
Catholic Church that its two first words have almost 
passed into a name for a prayer generally — Pater No8- 



316 THE lord's prayer. [Chap. XV. 

ter^ — which is the Latin of " Our Father." It has been 
translated into ahnost all languages. It is used, at least 
in modern times, in all the Presbyterian churches of 
Scotland, and in most of the English Nonconformist 
churches. However great may be the scruples which 
any community may entertain against set forms, there is 
hardly any which will refuse to use this prayer. The So- 
ciety of Friends is probably the only exception. What- 
ever may be the case with other formularies or cate- 
chisms, this at least is not a distinctive formulary; it is 
common to the whole of Christendom — nay, as we shall 
see, it is common to the whole of mankind. Luther 
calls it " the Prayer of Prayers." Baxter says, " The 
Lord's Prayer, with the Creed and Ten Commandments, 
tlie older I grew, furnished me with a most plentiful and 
acceptable matter for all my meditations." Archbishop 
Leighton, the only man who was almost successful in 
joining together the Churches of England and Scotland, 
was, we are told, especially partial to the Lord's Prayer, 
and said of it, " Oh, the spirit of this prayer would make 
rare Christians." Bossuet, the most celebrated of French 
divines, and Channing, the most celebrated of American 
divines, both repeated it on their death-beds. Channing 
said, " This is the perfection of the Christian religion." 
Bossuet said, " Let us read and re-read incessantly the 
Lord's Prayer. It is the true prayer of Christians, and 
the most perfect, for it contains all." On the day of his 
execution it was repeated by Count Egmont, leader of 
the insurrection in the -Netherlands. On the day of his 
mortal illness it summed up the devotions of the Em- 
peror Nicholas of Russia. Even those who knew nothing 
about it have acknowledged its excellence. A French 
countess read this prayer to her unbelieving husband in 
a dangerous illness. " Say that again," he said, "it is a 
beautiful prayer. Who made it ? " 



Chap. XV.] ITS OUTWARD SHAPE. 317 

2. Again, in the Early Church it was the only set form 
of Liturgy. It was, so to speak, the whole Liturgy ; it 
was the only set form of prayer then used in the celebra- 
tion of the Holy Communion. Whatever other prayers 
were used were offered up according to the capacity and 
choice of the minister. ^ But there was one prayer fixed 
and universal, and that was the Lord's Prayer. The 
Clementine Liturgy alone omits it. From that unique 
position it has been gradually pushed aside by more 
modern prayers. But the recollection of its ancient pre- 
eminent dignity is still retained in the older liturgies by 
its following immediately after the consecration prayer ; 
and in the modern English Liturgy, although it has been 
yet further removed, yet its high importance in the ser- 
vice is indicated by its being used twice — once at the 
commencement and immediately after the administration. 
Whenever we so hear it read we are reminded of its 
original grandeur as the root of all liturgical eucharistic 
services everywhere. It is an indication partly of the 
immense change which has taken place in all liturgies : 
it shows how far even the most ancient that exist have 
departed from their original form. But it reminds us 
also what is the substance of the whole Communion 
service ; what is the spirit by which and in which alone 
the blessings of that service can be received. 

3. And now let us look at its outward shape. What 
do we learn from this? We may infer from the oc- 
currence of any form at all in the teaching of Christ 
that set forms of prayer are not in themselves wrong. 
He, when He was asked by His disciples, " Teach us to 
pray," did not say, as He might have done, "- Nevei- use 
any form of words — wait till the Spirit moves you — 
take no thought how you shall speak, for it shall be 
given you in the same hour what you should speak — 

1 See Chapter III. 



318 THE lord's prayer. [Chap. XV. 

' out of the abundance of your heart your moutli shall 
speak.' " There are times when He did so speak. But 
at any rate on two occasions He is reported to have given 
a fixed form of words. But as He gave a fixed form, so 
neither did He bind His disciples to every word of it al- 
ways and exclusively. He did not say, " In these words 
pray ye," but on one occasion, " After this manner pray 
ye." And as if to bring out still more distinctly that 
even in this most sacred of all prayers it is the spirit 
and not the letter that is of any avail, there are two 
separate forms of it given in the Gospels according to 
St. Matthew and St. Luke, which, though the same in 
substance, differ much in detail. " Give us this day our 
daily bread " it is in St. Matthew ; " Give us day by 
day our daily bread " it is in St Luke. " Forgive us 
our debts as we forgive our debtors," it is in St. Mat- 
thew ; " Forgive us our sins ; for we also forgive every 
one that is indebted to us," it is in St. Luke. And yet, 
besides, it may be observed that there is a still further 
variation in the Lord's Prayer as we read it in the Eng- 
lish Liturgy from the form in which we read it in the 
Authorized Version of the Bible — " Forgive us our 
trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us," 
is a petition that is the same in sense but different in 
words from what it is either in St. Matthew or St. 
Luke. And again, what we call the doxology at the 
end, " For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the 
glory," is not found at all in St. Luke, nor in the oldest 
manuscripts of St. Matthew, and is never used at all in 
the oldest Churches of Europe. The Roman Catholic 
Church absolutely rejects it. The Greek reads it but 
not as part of the Lord's Prayer. Pope, the Roman 
Catholic poet, imagined that it was written by Luther. 
All these variations show the difference between the 
spirit and the substance, between the form and the 



Chap. XV.] ITS ORIGIN. 319 

letter. The Lord's Prayer is often repeated merely by 
rote, and has often been used superstitiously as a charm. 
These slight variations are the best proofs that this for- 
mal repetition is not the use for which it was intended. 
In order to pray as Jesus Christ taught us to pray we 
must pray with the understanding as well as with the 
spirit — with the spirit and heart as well as with the 
lips. Prayer in its inferior form becomes merely me- 
chanical; but in its most perfect form it requires the 
exercise of the reason and understanding. This distinc- 
tion is the salt which saves all prayers and all religions 
whatever from corruption. 

4. There is yet a further lesson to be learned from 
the general form and substance of the Lord's Prayer. 
Whence did it come ? What, so to speak, was the 
quarry out of which it was hewn ? It might have been 
entirely fresh and new. It might have been brought 
out for the first time by " Him who spake as never man 
spake." And in a certain sense this was so. As a 
whole it is entirely new. It is, taking it from first to 
last, what it is truly called, " the Lord's Prayer" — the 
Prayer of our Lord, and of no one else. But if we take 
each clause and word by itself it has often been ob- 
served by scholars that they are in part taken from the 
writings of the Jewish Rabbis. It was an exaggeration 
of Wetstein when he said, " Tota haec oratio ex formulis 
Hebrseorum concinnata est." But certainly in the first 
two petitions there are strong resemblances. " Every 
scribe," said our Lord, " bringeth forth out of his treas- 
ury things new and old." And that is exactly what He 
did Himself in this famous prayer. Something like at 
least to those familiar petitions exists in some hole or 
corner of Jewish liturgies. It was reserved for the 
Divine Master to draw them forth from darkness into 
light, and speak out on the housetop what was formerly 



320 THE lord's prayer. [Chap. XV. 

whispered in the scholar's closet — to string together in 
one continuous garland the pearls of great price that 
had been scattered here and there, disjointed and di- 
vided. We learn from this the value of selection, dis- 
crimination of study, in the choice of our materials of 
knowledge, whether divine or human, and especially of 
our devotion. We are not to think that a saying, or 
truth, or prayer is less divine because it is found out- 
side the Bible. We are not to think that anything good 
in itself is less good because it comes from a rabbinical 
or heathen source. 

5. Observe its brevity. It is indeed a comment upon 
the saying, " God is in heaven, and thou upon earth ; 
therefore let thy words be few." No doubt very often 
we pray in forms much longer than this ; but the short- 
ness of the Lord's Prayer is compatible with its being 
the most excellent of all prayers, and with compressing 
our devotion into the briefest compass. In fact the occa- 
sion on which it is introduced lays the chief stress on its 
shortness. It was first taught in express contrast to the 
long repetitions of the heathen religions. " They think 
that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be 
not ye therefore like unto them, for your Father knoweth 
what things ye have need of before ye ask Him. After 
this manner therefore pray ye." Every one, however 
difficult he may find it to make long prayers, however 
pressing his business may be, morning, noon, and night, 
may have time for this very short prayer. How long 
does it take ? One minute. How many sentences does 
it contain ? Seven. The youngest as well as the oldest 
— the busiest as w^ell as the idlest — the most sceptical 
as well as the most devout — can at least in the day 
once or twice, if not in the early morning or the late 
evening, use this short prayer. Ther'e is nothing in it 
to offend. They who scruple or who throw aside the 



3 



Chap. XV.] ITS CONTENTS. 321 

Prayer Book, or the Directory, or the Catechism, or the 
Creed, at least may say the Lord's Prayer. They can- 
not be the worse for it. They may be the better. 

6. And now let us look upon the substance of the sen- 
tences as they follow one another. We have said that a 
nation's religious life may be judged by its chief prayers. 
For example, the Mohammedan religion may fairly 
claim to be represented by the one prayer that every 
Mussulman offers to God morning and evening. It is 
in the first chapter of the Koran, and it is this : — 

"Praise be to God, Master of the Universe, 
The Merciful, the Compassionate, 
Lord of the day of Judgment. 
To Thee we give our worship, 
From Thee we have our help. 
Guide us in the right way. 

In the wa}- of those whom Thou hast loaded with Thy blessing. 
Not in the way of those who have encountered Thy wrath, or who have gone 
astray." 

Let us not despise that prayer — so humble, so simple, 
so true. Let us rather be thankful that from so many 
devout hearts throughout the Eastern world there as- 
cends so pure an offering to the Most High God. Yet 
surely we may say in no proud or Pharisaic spirit that, 
compared even with this exalted prayer of the Arabian 
Prophet, there is a richness, a fulness, a height of hope, 
a depth of humility, a breadth of meaning in the prayer 
of the Lord Jesus which we find nowhere else, which 
stamps it with a divinity all its own. 

" Our Father which art iit Heaven." Our 
Father, not my Father. He is the God not of one man, 
or one church, or one nation, or one race only — but of 
all who can raise their thoughts towards Him. Father. 
That is the most human, most personal, most loving 
thought which we can frame in speaking of the Su- 
preme Being. And yet He is IN Heaven. That is the 
most remote, the most spiritual, the most impersonal 

21 



322 THE LOED's prayer. [Chap. XV. 

thought which we can frame concerning Him. Heaven 
is a word which expresses the ideal, the unseen world, 
and there infinitely raised above us all is the Father 
whom we adore. " Hallowed be Thy name." That 
is the hope that all levity, that all profaneness may be 
banished from the worship of God ; not only that our 
worship may be simple, solemn, and reverent, but that 
our thoughts concerning Him may be consecrated and 
set apart from all the low, debasing, superstitious, selfish 
ends to which His name has so often been turned. " O 
Liberty," it was once said, " how many are the crimes 
that have been committed in thy name ! " " O Relig- 
ion," so we may also say when we repeat this clause of 
the Lord's Prayer, " how many are the crimes that have 
been committed in th}^ name ! " iMay that holy name 
be hallowed by the acts and words of those who profess 
it I "Thy kingdom come." This is the highest hope 
of humanity : that the rule of supreme truth, and mercy, 
and justice, and beauty, may penetrate every province of 
thought, and action, and law, and art. It has been said 
there are some places on earth where we have to think 
what is the one single prayer which we should utter if 
we were sure of its being fulfilled. This would be, " Thy 
kingdom come." " Thy will be done." That is the 
expression of our entire resignation to whatever shall 
year by year, and day by day befall us. Resignation 
which shall calm our passions, and control our murmurs, 
and curtail our griefs, and kindle our cheerfulness. It 
is, as Bishop Butler has said, the whole of religion. 
Islam derives its name from it. " In earth AS IT IS 
IN HEAVEN." These are words which lift our souls up 
from the world in which we struggle with manifold im- 
perfections to the ideal heavenly world, where all is 
perfect. Party strife — crooked ends — ignominious flat- 
teries — are they necessary ? Let us hope that a time 



Chap. XV.] ITS CONTENTS. 323 

may come when they will be unnecessary. " Give us 
THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD." Here we turn from 
heaven back to earth, and ask for our needful food, our 
enjoyment, our sustenance from day to day. It is the 
one petition for our earthl}^ wants. We know not what 
a day may bring forth. Give us only, give us at least 
what we need, of sustenance both for body and soul. 
"Enough is enough" — ask not for more.^ ""Enough 
for our faith, enough for our maintenance when the sun 
dawns and before the sun sets." " Forgive us OUR 

TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THEM THAT TRESPASS 

AGAINST US." Who is there that has not need to forgive 
some one — who is there that has not the need of some- 
thing to be forgiven ? The founder of Georgia said to 
the founder of Methodism, " I never forgive any one." 
John Wesley answered, " Sir, I trust you never sin." 
"Lead us not into temptation." The temptations 
which beset us. How much of sin comes from the out- 
ward incidents and companionships round us ! How 
much of innocence from that good Providence which 
wards off the corrupting, defiling, debasing influences 
that fill the earth ! Save us, we may well ask, from the 
circumstances of our age, our country, our church, our 
profession, our character ; save us from those circum- 
stances which draw forth our natural infirmities — save 
us from these, break their force. And this is best ac- 
complished by the last petition, " Deliver us from 
evil ; " that is, deliver us from the evil,^ whatsoever it 
is, that lurks even in the best of good things. From the 
idleness that grows out of youth and fulness of bread 
— from the party spirit that grows out of our political 
enthusiasm or our nobler ambition — f i-om the fanatical 

1 See Bishop Lightfoot's treatise on the word. €7riou<rio?. 

2 ano Tov novripov, "the evil," not "the Evil One." So it must be trans- 
lated in Matt. V. 37, 39, as well as in Matt. vi. 13. 



824 THE lord's prayer. [Chap. XV. 

narrowness wliicli goes hand in hand with our religious 
earnestness — from the harshness which clings to our love 
of truth — from the indifference which results from our 
wide toleration — from the indecision which intrudes 
itself into our careful discrimination — from the folly of 
the good, and from the selfishness of the wise, Good 
Lord deliver us. " For thine is tbge kingdom, and 

THE POWER, AND THE GLORY, FOR EVER AND EVER, 
AMEN." So Christendom has added its ratification to 
the words of Christ. It is the thankfulness which we all 
feel for the majesty and thought and beauty which our 
heavenly Father has shown to us in the paths of nature 
or in the greatness of man. 

We have thus briefly traversed these petitions. When 
our Lord's disciples came and asked" for a form of prayer. 
Its conciu- ^o't ^s John's disciples had received from their 
sion. master, they thought, no doubt, that He would 

give them something peculiar to themselves — something 
that no one else could use. They little knew what the 
peculiarity, the singularity of their Master's Prayer 
would be — that it was one that might be used by 
every church, by every sect, by every nation, by every 
member of the human famil}^ It is possible that some 
may be inclined to complain of this extreme comprehen- 
siveness and indefiniteness, and to say there is something 
here which falls short of the promise in St. John's Gos- 
pel. " If ye shall ask anything in My name I will do 
it." But the answer is that here, as before, this prayer 
is a striking example of the greatness of the spirit above 
the letter. In the letter it does not begin or end in the 
actual name of Jesus Christ. That familiar termination 
which to our ears has become almost the necessary end- 
ing to every prayer, and which is used in every church, 
whether Unitarian or Trinitarian, is not here. We do 
not close our Lord's prayer with the words " through 



II 



Chap. XV.] ITS CONTENTS. 325 

Jesiis Christ our Lord." We do not invoke tlie holy 
name of Jesus either at the beginning or end. But not 
the less is it in the fullest sense a prayer in the name of 
Christ. In the name of Christ, that is (taking these 
words in their Biblical sense), "in the spirit of Christ," 
'' according to the nature and the will of Christ," copy- 
ing from the lips of Christ, adopted as His one formulary 
of faith at His express commandment. In this true 
meaning of the words the Lord's Prayer is more the 
Prayer of our Lord, is more entirely filled with the name 
and spirit of Christ, than if the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ were repeated a hundred times over. In Pope's 
Universal Prayer there is much which is condemned by 
religious persons, and we do not undertake to defend the 
taste or the sentiment of it in every part. But assuredly 
that which is its chief characteristic, its universality, is 
exactl}^ in spirit that which belongs to the prayer of 
Christ. It is expressed in those well-known words : — 

*' Father of all I in every age, 
In every clime ador'd, 
By saint, by savage, or by sage, 
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord." 

It is this very characteristic of the prayer which makes 
it to be in His name. It is this very universality which 
overflows with Himself, and which makes the prayer of 
the philosopher to be a paraphrase of His Prayer. He is 
in every syllable of this sacred formula, as He is not 
equally in any other formula. He is in the whole of it, 
and in all its parts. Of these, the most sacred of all the 
words that He has given us, it is true what He said of 
all His words — they are not mere words, they are spirit 
and they are life. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE COUNCIL AND CREED OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

It may be interesting in connection with the history of 
the early Creeds to add an account of the circumstances 
under which they came into existence. Of the Apostles' 
Creed we have already spoken. ^ The Nicene Creed was 
the result of the Council of Nic^ea, and this, though in a 
form totally different from that which now bears the 
name, is the original Creed of the Empire, and its for- 
mation has been described in the " Lectures on the East- 
ern Church." 2 The Athanasian Creed is of much later 
date, and has also been the subject of a separate treat- 
ise.^ There remains therefore only the Creed commonly 
called the Creed of Constantinople, which is now adopted 
by the Churches of Rome and England, and the Luth- 
eran Churches, and through the whole of the Eastern 
Church, with the exception of the Coptic, Nestorian, and 
Armenian branches. In order to do this, it will be nec- 
essary to describe the Council, with which its composition 
is traditionall}^ connected, the more so as the assembly 
has never yet been adequately portrayed. After this de- 
scription it will be our object to examine into the nature 
and pretensions of the Creed which is usually supposed 
to have sprung out of it. 

The city of Constantinople had been * almost ever since 

1 Lecture Xni. 2 Lectures on the Eastern Church, Lecture iv. 

3 The Athanasian Creed, with a Preface. 

4 The usual authorities which describe the Council are the ecclesiastical histo- 
rians of the following century — Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret. But far more 
important than these are the letters, orations, and autobiographical poems of 



Chap. XVI.] GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 327 

the Council of Nicsea in the hands of the great party 
which was called by the name of the heresiarch Arius, and 
which embraced all the princes of the Imperial House 
from Constantine the Great to Yalens (with the excep- 
tion of the " apostate " Julian), as well as the Gothic tribes 
on the frontier. But the " orthodox " or so called " Cath- 
olic " party, to which the name of Athanasius still gave 
life, struggled on ; and when the rude Spanish soldier 
Theodosius restored peace to the Empire, his known opin- 
ions in favor of the orthodox doctrine gave a hope of re- 
turning strength to the cause which had vanquished at 
Nicsea. Under these circumstances, the little community 
which professed the Athanasian belief at Constantinople 
determined on the step of calling to their assistance one 
of the leaders of those opinions from the adjacent prov- 
ince of Asia Minor. Basil would have been the natural 
choice ; but his age and infirmities rendered this impos- 
sible. Accordingly, they fixed on Gregory, commonly 
called " of Nazianzus." Unlike the school in Gregory 
the English Church which, in the time of the Nazianzen. 
Nonjurors, and afterwards, sanctions the intrusion of new 
bishops into places already preoccupied by lawful pre- 
lates, the orthodox community at Constantinople showed 
a laudable moderation. Gregory was already a bishop, 
but a bishop without a diocese. Appointed to the see of 
Sasima, he had never undertaken its duties, but con- 
tented himself with helping his aged father in the bish- 
opric of his birthplace Nazianzus. Accordingly he was 
ready to the hands of the minority of the Church of By- 
zantium, without any direct infringement of the rights 
and titles of Demophilus, the lawful bishop of Constanti- 
nople. 

Gregory Nazianzen, who was not only a contemporary, but an eye-witness of 
most of what he describes. We must add from modern times the learned Tille- 
mont the exact Hefele, and the elaborate and for the most part impartial nan-a- 
tire of the Due de Broghe, all of them belonging to the more moderate school 
of the Roman Church. 



328 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap, XVL 

He came from his rustic retreat reluctantly. He was 
prematurely old and infirm. His bald head streaked 
with a few white hairs, and his bent figure, were not cal- 
culated to command attention. He was retiring, suscep- 
tible, and, in his manners, simple to a fault. It is this 
contrast with the position which was forced upon him 
that gives the main interest to the curious cycle of events 
of which he thus became the centre. 

Constantinople was crowded with the heads of the dif- 
ferent ecclesiastical parties, awaiting the arrival of the 
new Emperor. There were the Arian bishops in posses- 
sion of the Imperial sees. There were the semi-Arians, 
who by very slight concessions on both sides might be 
easily included in the orthodox community. There were 
the liberal Catholics, who were eager to grant such con- 
cessions. There were the Puritan Catholics, who rigidly 
spurned all compromise. With these divisions there was 
a vast society, hardly less civilized, less frivolous, less com- 
plex, than that of our great capitals now, entering into 
those abstract theological questions as keenly as our met- 
ropolitan circles into the political or ecclesiastical disputes 
which form the materials of conversation at the dinner- 
tables of London or the saloons of Paris. Everywhere in 
that new capital of the world — at the races of the Hip- 
podrome, at the theatres, at feasts, in debauches,^ the 
most sacred names were bandied to and fro in eager dis- 
putation. Every corner, every alley of the city, the 
streets, the markets, the drapers' shops, the tables of 
moneychangers and of victuallers, were crowded with 
these " off-hand dogmatizers." ^ If a trader was asked 
the cost of such an article, he answered by philosophizing 
on generated and ungenerated being. If a stranger in- 
quired the price of bread, he was told "the Son is subor- 

1 Gregory Naz. Or. 22-27. 

2 avTOdx^hoi 5oy/j.aTt<7Tai. Gregory Nyssa, De Deitate Filii, voL ii. p. 898. 



Chap. XVI.] GREGORY NAZIANZEN. 329 

dinate to the Father." If a traveller asked whether his 
bath was ready, he was told " the Sod arose out of noth- 
ing." 

The shyness as well as the piety of Gregory led him to 
confine his appearance in public to the pulpit. So com- 
pletely had the orthodox party been depressed, that they 
had no church to offer him for his ministrations. They 
went back for the moment to the custom which, begin- 
ning at or before the first conversion of the Empire, was 
in fact the origin of all the early Christian churches. 
Every great Roman house had attached to it a hall, 
which was used by its owner for purposes of justice or of 
public assemblies, and bore (at least in Rome) the name 
of " basilica." ^ Such a hall was employed by Gregory 
on this occasion in the house where he had taken up his 
quarters. An extempore altar was raised, and in accord- 
ance with the ancient Eastern practice of separating the 
sexes, a gallery was erected for the w^omen, such as on a 
gigantic scale still exists in the Church of St. Sophia ; 
showing at once the importance of the female element in 
these Byzantine congregations, and also the prominence 
given to an element in ecclesiastical architecture which is 
regarded by modern ecclesiologists as utterly incongruous. 
To this extemporized chapel he gave the name of the 
Anastasia, or Church of the Resurrection or Revival ; in ^ 
allusion to the resurrection, as he hoped, of the orthodox 
party in the Church, much as Nonconformists gave to 
their places of worship the names, not of the ancient 
saints, but of such events, or symbols, as seemed to indi- 
cate their solitary position in a corrupt world or church 

^ See Chapter IX. 

2 It furnishes a curious example of the growth of a legend from a name. Soc- 
rates records the mii-acle of a woman falling from the gallery without injury to 
life, as the origin of the title. As we know the real meaning of the name, it is 
obvious that the reverse is the true account of the matter. A Novatiau chapel 
had borne the same name for the same reason. 



330 THE COrXCIL OF COXSTAXTIXOPLE. [Chap. XYI. 

— Ehenezei\ " the stone of help ; " Bethesda. " the house 
of help.*' The building was soon crowded ; the crush at 
the entrance was often terrific ; the rails of the chancel 
were broken down ; the congregation frequently burst out 
into loud applause. It required a more than mortal not 
to be touchea and elated by these signs of the effect pro- 
duced by his oratory. As the ao^ed Wilberforce used 
long after his retirement from public life to recall the re- 
sults of his eloquence in the House of Commons — ^' Oh ! 
those cheers, those delightful cheers ! " so Gregory, years 
afterwards, used to be yisited in his solitar}^ dreams by 
yisions of his beloyed Anastada ; the church brilliantly il- 
luminated ; himself, after the manner of the ancient bish- 
ops, aloft on his throne at the eastern end, the presbyters 
round him, and the deacons in their white robes below ; 
the crowd thronging the church, eyery eye fixed on him ; 
the congregation sometimes wrapt in profound silence, 
sometimes breaking out into loud shouts of approbation. 
But these bright da3'S were destined to haye a sad 
morrow. The sermons, which consisted usually of ab- 
stract disquisitions on the disputed doctrines, but some- 
times of counsels towards moderation, yeiled under a 
eulogy of the great Athanasius,^ proYoked the jealousy 
or hostility of the opposite party, or perhaps of the more 
zealous members of his own. On one occasion a body of 
drunken artisans broke into the church, accompanied by 
an army of beggars, of furious nuns,^ and, the usual ac- 
companiment of riots at that time, ferocious monks. A 
yiolent conflict ensued — some of the priests and neo- 
phytes were wounded. The police hesitated to interfere — 
ostensibly on the ground that it was impossible to decide 



1 This is the date of the oration on Athanasius, according to M. de Broglie. 

2 M. de Broglie sars "des femmes debauchees." But it is clear from Greg- 
ory's account {Or. xxiii. 5, xxxv. 3; Ep. 77: Carm. de Vita Sua, 660, 670), 
that they ^ere the nuns or consecrated virgins. 



11 



Chap. XVI.] MAXIMUS. 331 

which were the assailed and which the assailants. Greg- 
ory, with a questionable prudence, had surrounded him- 
self with a body of orthodox fanatics, with whom he had 
but little sympathy, and whose hostility to the modera- 
tion of the venerable Basil might have well roused his 
suspicion. They slept in his house, they assisted him in 
preparing his sermons, they formed a guard about him in 
these tumults. One of them was no less a person than 
the youthful Jerome, then on his way from the farther 
East, whose fierce and acrid temper rendered him a 
staunch but perilous friend, and who lost no occasion of 
expressing his admiration of Gregory — his ''beloved 
master," "to whom there was no equal in the Western 
Church." 1 There was another who rendered a yet more 
dubious assistance. Maximus or Heron was one of the 
class of those wild Egyptians who played some 

p , . 1 . Maximus. 

years later so disgraceful a part m the tram of 
Cyril of Alexandria. He had once been a philosopher of 
the Cynical sect, and, although ordained, still wore their 
curious costume. In all these disturbances his figure 
was conspicuous. He wielded a long staff in his hands. 
A tangled mass of curls — half of their natural black, 
half painted yellow — fell over his shoulders. ^ A dirty 
shirt enveloped his half-naked limbs, which he occasion- 
ally drew aside to show the scars of wounds which he 
professed to have received in some persecution. At every 
word of Gregory he uttered shouts of delight, at every 
allusion to the heretics he uttered yells of execration. 
The most sinister rumors, however, were circulated 
against his private character. Even the marks on his 
back were whispered to be the effects of a severe casti- 
gation with which he had been visited for some discredit- 

1 Man)' questions passed between them on Biblical criticism and on ecclesias- 
tical policy. (Jerome, Contra Rujin. i. 13; De Viris JUustribus, c. 117.) 

2 De Vit. 754, 766. 



332 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XYL 

able transaction. But Gregory was infatuated, as is 
sometimes the case with the most sagacious and the most 
incorruptible of men, by the charms of assiduous flattery, 
and by the advantage of having near him an ally who 
stopped at nothing in defence of a cause which he thought 
right. Such is the secret of the ridiculous eulogy which 
Gregory pronounced on jMaximus in his presence, iji a 
sermon which still remains as a monument of the weak- 
ness into which party spirit can betray even a thoughtful 
and pious man. His dear " Heron was a true model of 
the union of philosophy and religion " ^ — a " friend from 
an unexpected quarter " — a " dog " — alluding to the 
title of his philosophical sect of the Cynics or " Dogs " — 
" a dog indeed in the best sense : a watch-dog, who 
guards the house from robbers " — finally, it was not too 
much to say, '' his successor in the promised see of Con- 
stantinople." This last hint was not thrown away on 
"the Dog." There was no time to be lost. The Em- 
peror was on his way to Constantinople. Whoever was 
the orthodox champion in possession of the see would 
probably be able to keep it. Maximus communicated 
his designs to his Egyptian fellow-countrymen amongst 
the bishops. They, as the orthodox of the orthodox, en- 
tered at once into his plan, which received the sanction 
of Peter, successor of Athanasius in the see of Alexandria. 
Alexandria at that time was, saving the dignity of the new 
capital of Constantinople, the chief city of the Eastern 
world. Its ecclesiastical primacy in the East had hither- 
to been undisputed. The Bishop of Alexandria was at 
this time the only " Pope " or " Father " of the Church. 
He had long enjoyed the title. It is a probable conject- 

1 Gregory Naz. Or. xxv. 1, 2. It is from his companion St. Jerome that 
we are able to substantiate the identity of Maximus with the Heron of this 
strange discourse. "The names were clianged," says Jerome, "in order to 
save the credit of Gregory from having alternately praised and blamed the same 
man." {De, Viris lUustribus, c. 117.) 



Chap. XVL] MAXIMUS. 333 

ure ^ that in this stroke of elevating an Egyptian of the 
Egyptians to the see of Constantinople there was a de- 
liberate intention at grasping the primacy of the Imperial 
Church. All was prepared. A large sum of money, 
placed at the disposal of Maximns by a Thasian presby- 
ter who had been to the Golden Horn to buy marble, 
was emplo^^ed in securing the services of a number of 
Alexandrian sailors. Gregory was confined to his house 
by illness. With this mixed multitude to represent the 
congregation, the Egyptian bishops solemnly consecrated 
Maxim us at the dead of night. The elevation to this 
high dignity was rendered still more marked by the met- 
amorphosis in his outward appearance. *' Tbey took 
' the dog,' " says Gregory, in whose eyes the Cynic now 
assumed a very different aspect, " and shaved him ; the 
long locks in which his strength resided were shorn off 
by these ecclesiastical Dalilahs." But Maximus had 
overreached himself. This was too startling a contrast. 
When he appeared in the morning, cropt, and well-dressed 
as a bishop, an inextinguishable roar of laughter resounded 
through the city. Gregory felt that he was included in 
the general ridicule. He determined on leaving Constan- 
tinople. Then a reaction took place. The mob veered 
round. They insisted on forcing Gregory at once into 
the contested see. They dragged him in their arms to 
the episcopal chair. He struggled to escape. He stiffened 
his legs, so as to refuse to sit. The perspiration streamed 
from his face. They pushed and forced him down. The 
women wept, the children screamed. At last he con- 
sented, and then was left to repose. He endeavored to 
recover his equanimity by retiring -for a time to a villa 
on the shores of the Sea of Marmora, there to wander, 
as he tell us, at sunset — unconscious of the glory which 
at that hour lights up that wonderful prospect with a 

1 Milman's Eistory of Christianity under the Empire, vol. iii. p. 116. 



334 THE COUNCIL OF CONST AXTIXOPLE. [Chap. XVI. 

glow of magical splendor, but not insensible to the mel- 
ancholy sentiment inspired by the rolling waves of the 
tideless sea along the bays of that winding shore. 

There were two other claimants for the vacant see — 
each waiting with the utmost expectation the only hand 
which could seat them securely in their places, the hand 
of Theodosius. At Thessalonica the Emperor met Max- 
inius, who, seeing that he was coldly received, took ref- 
uge at Alexandria, under the shelter of the prelate who 
was at that time the eastern oracle of the ecclesiastical 
world. Theodosius in this difficulty appealed to the 
western oracle at Rome. The Bishop of Rome was glad 
of the opportunity of striking a blow at once at the in- 
dependence and the superior civilization of the East. 
Damasus, who had a sufiicient tincture of letters to write 
the verses that may still be read in the Roman catacombs, 
fired off an answer which by the same blow killed one and 
wounded the other rival. Maximus was to be rejected, 
not on account of his scandalous vices, but because he still 
wore the garb of a philosopher. " N'o Christian can wear 
the clothes of a pagan philosopher." And then, with 
a covert attack on Gregory himself, he added, " Philos- 
ophy, friend of the world's wisdom, is the enemy of faith, 
the poison of hope, the war against charity." The advice 
thus proffered was followed up by a recommendation to 
the Emperor to summon a General Council for the set- 
tlement of the disputed succession. 

This accordingly was the origin of the Council of Con- 
stantinople. Theodosius meanwhile took the matter of 
the See of Constantinople into his own hands. To the 
actual Bishop, the Arian Demophilus, he proposed the 
orthodox confession or resignation ; Demophilus honora- 
bly resisted the temptation. "• Since you fly from peace," 
said the Emperor, " I will make you fly from your place." 
So summary was the deposition of a prelate in those 



Chap. XVI.] CONSECRATION OF GREGORY. 335 

days, when the breath, not of a prelate but of an Em- 
peror, was sufficient to depose the greatest bishops in 
Christendom. To Gregory he turned with a no less 
imperious expression of his will : " Constantinople de- 
mands 3^ou, and God makes me his instrument to give 
you this church." The election was still nominally in 
the hands of the people, but the mandate of the Em- 
peror was more powerful than any conge cfelire. It was 
on the 26th of November — one of those dreary days on 
which the winds from the Black Sea envelop the bright 
city of Constantinople with a shroud of clouds dark as 
night, which Gregory's enemies interpreted into a sinister 
presage of his ill-omened elevation. The Emperor rode 
in state to the church where the ceremony was to take 
place. The immense multitude of the Arian population 
who were to lose their bishop, and perhaps themselves 
to be banished with him, — old men, women, and chil- 
dren, — threw themselves in vain before his horse's feet. 
The Spanish soldier rode on immovable, as if he were on 
his way to the field of battle. It was, says Gregory him- 
self, the likeness of a city taken by storm. By the Em- 
peror's side was the pale, stooping, trembling candidate 
for the see, hardly knowing where he was till he found 
himself safe within the church, behind the rails of the 
chancel, where he sat side by side with the magnificent 
Emperor, who in his imperial purple was raised there 
aloft as the chief person in the place. It was the 
" Church of the Apostles," that earliest mausoleum of 
Christian sovereigns, the first germ of St. Denys, the 
Escurial, and Westminster Abbey, where Constantine 
and his successors lay entombed, and where in after 
days was to rise a yet more splendid edifice, the mosque 
which the Mussulman conqueror Mahomet II. built in 
like manner for himself and his dynasty. There was still 
a hesitation, or seeming hesitation, as to which way the 



336 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVL 

popular feeling would turn. Suddenly, by one of those 
abrupt transitions common in Eastern skies, a ray of 
sunlight burst through the wintry clouds, and flashing 
from sword to sword along the ranks of soldiers, and 
from gem to gem on the rich dresses of priest and cour- 
tier, finally enveloped the bald white head of Gregory 
himself as with a halo of glory. The omen was at once 
accepted. A shout like thunder rose from the vast con- 
gregation, ''Long live our Bishop Gregory!" In the 
high galleries rang the shrill cries of the women in re- 
sponse. With a few faint protestations, Gregory con- 
sented to mount the Episcopal chair, and the long dis- 
pute was terminated. 

Within six weeks after this event took place one of 
those double-sided movements which, without revealing 
Funeral of ^^J actual dupUcity in the actors, disclose the 
Athananc. hollowncss of their pretcusions and opinions. 
On the same day that a rigid decree condemned and 
banished the Arians of the empire from the walls of 
every citj,^ there arrived in Constantinople the chief of 
the whole Arian world, Athanaric the Goth, seeking 
shelter in the court of his conqueror from a domestic 
revolution. He was received with as much honor as if 
he had been the most orthodox of mankind, and then 
a few days after his arrival he wasted away and died. 
His funeral, heretic as he was, was conducted with a 
magnificence which excited the wonder and admiration 
of the Goths even far away beyond the Danube. 

Meanwhile the day for the opening of the Council 
drew on. Even Gregory did not consider his elevation 
secured till he had received its confirmation. The month 

1 Demophilus the Arian bishop, on the promulgation of this edict, very 
naturally quoted the evangelical precept, "If they persecute you in one city, 
flee to another." "Not so," says Socrates, the ecclesiastical historian. " The 
text means that you must leave the city of the world and go to the city of the 
heavenly Jerusalem." 



Chap. XVI.] ITS MEMBERS. 337 

of May had come — tlie season when the navigation of 
the Mediterranean was open, and when the Bishops could 
safely embark from their distant dioceses. It was the 
first General Council that had assembled in the Imperial 
city. When its predecessors met at Nic^ea, this was be- 
cause Constantinople was not yet founded. But now 
there was no locality at once so central and so august as 
the great Christian capital. Called as the Council w^as 
emphatically " by the commandment and will " of the 
Emperor, it could meet nowhere but under the shadow 
of the Imperial throne. Although less distin- itsmem- 
guished by the character and fame of its mem- ^^^^- 
bers than that earlier synod, and although still more ex- 
clusively confined to the Eastern Church, it was not with- 
out some brilliant ornaments. There were the friends 
of Basil, well versed in his moderate counsels. Chief 
amongst them was his brother Gregory of Nyssa, reck- 
oned by the 5th and 7th General Councils amongst 
the highest authorities of the Church.^ He had lately 
returned from his journey to Syria, on a mission of peace- 
making — filled with indignation against the follies and 
scandals of the pilgrimages. He brought with him his 
elaborate work against the recent heretics, which in spare 
moments he read aloud to his friend the new Bishop of 
Constantinople, and to their joint admirer the youthful 
Jerome.2 There was Cyril of Jerusalem, now in his ad- 
vancing years, with whom Gregory had there become ac- 
quainted, and who himself had originally belonged to the 
semi-Arian section of the Church. There was Melitius, 
the just and gentle Bishop of Antioch, so much revered 
in his own city that his portrait was found everywhere, on 
rings, on goblets, in the saloons of palaces, in the private 
chambers of great ladies. It might be conjectured that 
one of these likenesses had wandered far West, from an 

1 Tillemont, ix. 601. 2 Jerome, De Vir. Ill c. 128. 

22 



838 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVI. 

incident which occurred on the first visit of the Bishops 
to the Emperor. The reception which he gave to Me- 
litius was of the most flattering kind ; he flew up to him, 
singled him from the rest, pressed him to his bosom, and 
kissed his eyes, lips, breast, head, and hand. He had, he 
said, in a vision on the eve of his election to the empire, 
seen a venerable person approach who wrapped him in 
his imperial mantle, and placed the diadem on his head. 
This personage he now recognized in the Bishop of An- 
tioch. Such a welcome of itself designated Melitius to 
be President of the Council. In fact, in the absence of 
the Bishops of Rome and Alexandria, the Bishop of An- 
tioch occupied the chief place. And the mellifluous 
character of 3Ielitius (to use the pun of Gregory) well 
adapted him for the office. 

The first work which the Council had to undertake 
was the decision of the contest for the see of Constanti- 
nople. The absence of Maximus, and of the Egyptian 
bishops, who were detained at Alexandria around the 
deathbed of their chief, rendered Gregory's triumph easy. 
But it is characteristic of his moderation, and of that of 
Melitius, that when there was a proposal of proceeding 
against the bishops who had taken part in the nomination 
of Maximus, it was abandoned on the grounds — too often 
lost sight of in the heat of controversy — that, as they 
were detained in Alexandria, it would be unjust to con- 
demn them in their absence Avithout hearing their de- 
fence. 

This auspicious beginning of a generosity unusual on 
such occasions was suddenly cut short by the death of 
Death of Mclitius. The grief felt on the event was testi- 
Meiitius. ^^^ j^^^ ^Y\Q magnificence of his obsequies. The 
body was wrapped in a silken shroud, worked by one of 
the noble ladies of Constantinople. It was carried in 
procession to the imperial mausoleum in the Church of 



Chap. XVI.] CONTENTIONS AT ANTIOCH. 339 

the Apostles ; all the bishops assisted, with their clergy, 
singing psalms in the different dialects — probably the 
Greek dialects — of Asia Minor and Syria. Funeral 
orations were pronounced, amongst others, by Gregory of 
Nyssa. The sacred remains were then sent home to An- 
tioch ; and it marks the difference between ancient and 
modern usage, that an express order from the Emperor 
was required to enable the funeral procession, as a spe- 
cial favor, even to enter the walls of the various cities 
through which it passed. 

The first question to be discussed by the Council, thus 
deprived of its head, and placed, as a matter of course, 
under the presidency of Gregory Nazianzen, now the rec- 
ognized bishop of the Imperial city, was occasioned by 
the very calamity which they were now deploring. Os- 
tensibly called together to decide certain grave theolog- 
ical questions then pending, their main interest was cen^ 
tred, as usually happens in popular assemblies, whether 
secular or ecclesiastical, on a question purely personal. 

The Church of Antioch had been lately divided by two 
contending factions. Melitius, who had thus been car- 
ried to his grave with all the honors of a saint, contentions 
was the lawful, but, in the eyes of an extreme ^* ^^^och. 
party at Antioch, not the orthodox, bishop of that see. 
He had in his youth, it was said, been infected by the 
subtle errors of Arius ; and, in his later years, he had 
joined Basil in the noble attempts of that distinguished 
divine to moderate the rage of controversy, and to ac- 
cept, without further test or questioning, all who were 
willing to adopt the creed of Nicsea, which down to that 
time had expressed no precise definition of the compli- 
cated opinions that were now arising on the nature of the 
Third Hypostasis of the Trinity.^ This moderation was 
a grave offence in the judgment of the partisans of ex- 

1 Gregory, Or. xliii. 19. 



340 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVL 

treme orthodoxy. They refused to communicate with 
Melitius ; and they received from Sardinia, from the 
hands of the stern fanatic Lucifer of Cagliari, a bishop 
of the name of Paulinus, who became the head of a dis- 
senting community within the Church of Antioch, prid- 
ing itself on its superior orthodoxy, and refusing to ac- 
knowledge the legitimate bishop, and maintained chiefly 
in its position not by any support from the national 
churches of the East, but from the more eager ^ zealots 
of the Western Empire^ who fanned the flames of dis- 
cord. " This ridiculous and causeless schism " ^ had en- 
gaged the attention of Melitius before he left his diocese. 
The case had been referred to the imperial councillors, 
who had decided in Melitius's favor ; and he then pro- 
posed to Pan! inns, as a middle course, that the govern- 
ment of the Church should remain in statu quo till the 
death of either, in which case the other should succeed 
to the vacant see. To this, after some hesitation, Paul- 
inus acceded ; and all the chief clergy at Antioch swore 
to observe the compact. 

On the death of Melitius, the very case provided for 
had occurred : and Gregor^^ immediately proposed to the 
Council that the convention should be carried out. He 
appealed to the oaths by which it was supported ; he re- 
minded them that " if two angels were candidates for the 
disputed see, the quarrel was not worth the scandal it 
occasioned." With a disinterestedness the more remark- 
able because he had been fiercely attacked by Paulinus 
for his moderate counsels in former times, he entreated 
them to abide by the agreement, and hinted at the dan- 
ger of rousing the passions of the western bishops, who 
were in favor of their nominee Paulinus. Never did 
Gregory plead with more eloquence or in behalf of a 
juster cause. But he pleaded in vain. Even before Me- 

1 De Broglie, voL i. pp. 121-123. 2 ibid. p. 424. 



Chap. XVI.] CONTENTIONS AT ANTIOCH. 341 

litius's death, the contending factions in this Antiochene 
quarrel had flown at each other's throats, canvassing 
right and left every one that came across them, with 
cheers and counter-cheers.^ The question had passed 
from the region of justice and of faith into a mere party 
struggle. Now that the time for a pacific settlement had 
arrived, the Melitians would not hear of submitting to 
the odious Paulinus. Nor could they be conciliated by 
the appeal of Gregory. His influence had been shaken 
by his weakness in the affair of Maxim us ; and, besides, 
his allusion to the fear of the West roused all the slum- 
bering passions of the jealous East. He has himself de- 
scribed the effect of his speech : ''A yell, rather than 
a cry, broke from the assembled episcopate." " They 
threw dust in his face ; they buzzed about him like a 
swarm of wasps; they cawed against him like an army 
of crows." The young were most ardent, but they were 
hounded on by the old. An argument against the West, 
wliich seemed to the youthful partisans of the East irre- 
sistible, W9,s that Christianity must follow the course of 
the sun, not from west to east, but from east to west ; 
and the Eastern bishops supported this view, " showing 
their tusks," says Gregory, " as if they had been wild 
boars." ^ From the midst of this tumult, he appealed to 
Modarius, an Imperial officer, a Goth, to allay the eccle- 
siastical clamor.^ He pointed out to him that these epis- 
copal gatherings, so far from putting an end to the evil, 
merely added confusion to confusion. It would seem 
that this appeal was also in vain. Theodosius, whether 
from scruple or policy, was determined to leave the bish- 
ops to themselves. The precedent set by Constantine 
at Nicsea had passed into a law. That sagacious ruler, 
when he received the mutual complaints and accusations 
of the bishops of the First General Council against each 

1 Gregory, De Vit. 1555. 2 De Vit. 1805. 3 Ep. 136. 



342 THE COUXCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVI. 

other, put them all into the fire without reading them ; 
and in accordance with this contemptuous but charitable 
act, an imperial decree ^Yas passed on the occasion of the 
Second Council,^ prohibiting bishops to appear against 
each other in courts of law. Theodosius, however, though 
unwilling to interfere directly, determined to exercise an 
indirect influence on the largest scale. He summoned 
from across the border the only western bishops who 
were available — those of Macedonia, which, according 
to the division then established, belonged to the Western 
Empire. Their appearance might have turned the scale 
in behalf of Gregory's counsels, but at the same moment 
that they entered Constantinople, there arrived in the 
Golden Horn an equal accession to the opposite faction 
from Egypt. The Egyptian bishops were with their new 
" Pope," and boiling over with indignation against Greg- 
ory for his rejection of their old favorite Maximus. The 
Macedonian bishops also proved more unmanageable than 
Theodosius had anticipated. They brought with them, 
as Gregory expresses it, the " rough breath of the Xorth- 
Wester." Their uncompromising austerity, and the sub- 
tle controversial spirit of the eastern prelates, found a 
common ground in attacking the unfortunate Gregory. 
There was one joint in his ecclesiastical harness which 
presented an opening for the darts of the rigid precisians 
of the time. The Council of Nicgea had peremptorily 
Deprivation forbiddeu, on pain of deprivation from orders, 
of Gregory. ^^^ translation — not only from see to see, but 
from parish to parish. 2 From that hour to this, in every 
church of Christendom, human ambition and obvious 
convenience have been too strong for the decree even of 
so venerable a body as the First (Ecumenical Council. 

1 Cod. Theod. xi. t. xxxix, 1. 9. As explained, with eveiy appearance of 
season, by M. de Broglie (vol. i. p. iS-i), after Godefroi. 

2 See Chapter IX. 



Chap. XVL] DEPRIVATION OF GREGORY. 343 

But, general as the violation of the decree was, it was 
only when personal interests could be served by reviving 
it that attention was called to the practice. Gregory 
had been Bishop of Sasima before he was elevated to the 
see of Constantinople. This was enough ; and although 
the fact had been perfectly known at the time when his 
election to the see was confirmed by this very Council ; 
although there was no reason for proceeding against him, 
rather than against any of the many bishops and presby- 
ters who had equally broken the decree of Nicaea ; al- 
though there was no occasion for reviving the question 
in his case at this particular moment ; yet the leading 
members of the Council had the meanness to condemn in 
him what they forgave in those with whom they had no 
quarrel ; to take advantage of his temporary unpopularity 
to press against him a measure which justice would have 
required to be pressed against numberless others. To 
Gregory personally the retirement from his bishopric was 
no great sacrifice. The episcopate had always been a 
burden to him ; he " neighed like an imprisoned horse 
for his green pastures ^ of study and leisure." He deter- 
mined at once to "make himself the Jonah of the tem- 
pest." Yet when it came to the point, even he could 
not believe that the Council would have the base ingrat- 
itude to accept a resignation so nobly and promptly of- 
fered. But generosity towards a fallen foe is a difl&cult 
virtue. A few, in disgust at their associates, followed 
Gregory as he left the Council. The rest remained, and 
rejoiced in the departure of an honest and therefore a 
troublesome chief. " I have not time or disposition," 
says Gregory, " to unravel their intrigues, so I will be 
silent." He then visited the Emperor, hoping, perhaps 
in spite of himself, to obtain a reversal of his own sen- 
tence. But Theodosius, though far more deeply affected 

1 De Vit. 1860-70. 



344 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVL 

than the Synod, adhered to the resolution of leaving the 
bishops to settle their own affairs ; and after a pathetic 
and eloquent farewell, delivered in the Church of the 
Apostles ; after a glowing description — true even after 
the vicissitudes of thirteen hundred years — of the great 
opportunities of Constantinople, " the eye of the world, 
the knot which links together East and West ; the centre 
in which all extremes combine," — Gregory quitted that 
glorious city forever, and hastened to bury his old age 
and his cares in the solitude of his ancestral home at 
Nazianzus. He might, perhaps, have acted a more dig- 
nified part had he buried in oblivion all remembrance of 
the causes of his retirement. But history has ratified the 
truth of the invectives which his vanity or his righteous 
indignation extorted from him. The pent-up flow of his 
emotion, as he says, could not be restrained,^ and the re- 
'sult is an elaborate picture of the bishops of that time, 
doubtless of those whom he bad known at the Council, 
and who had cast him out from their ranks as " an evil 
and unholy man." This extraordinary description would 
be justly considered a libel on any modern ecclesiastical 
assembly, and is thus instructive, as showing the impres- 
sion produced on a contemporary and a canonized saint 
by an institution and an age to which later times have 
looked back with such unquestioning reverence.^ " They 
are actors on a gigantic scale." " They walk on stilts." 
" They grin through borrowed masks." They seem to 
him as though they had come in answ^er to the summons 
of a herald who had convoked to the Council all the 



1 Ad Episc. (vol ii. pp. 824, 829.) 

2 M. de Bi'oglie has evaded some of these dark colors by transferring them to 
the Arian bishops ; much in the same way as the mutual recriminations of the 
Bishops of Nicsea have been disposed of by wrongly referring them to the here- 
tics. But there can be no question that Gregory is speaking of those who dis- 
missed him from his office (see De Episc. 150, Ad Episc. 110), and therefore of 
the Council collectively. 



Chap. XVI.] DEPKIVATION OF GREGORY. 345 

gluttons, villains, liars, false-swearers of the Empire. 
They are " chameleons that change their color with every 
stone over which they pass." They are " illiterate, low- 
born, filled with all the pride of upstarts fresh from the 
tables of false accountants," " peasants from the plough," 
or from the spade, " unwashed blacksmiths," " deserters 
from the army and navy, still stinking from the holds of 
the ships," or with the brand of the whip or the iron on 
their bodies. The refined Gregory was doubtless acutely 
sensitive to the coarseness of vulgarity and " the igno- 
rance which never knows when to be silent." But he is 
aware of the objection that the Apostles might be said 
also to have been unlearned men. " Yes," he replies, as 
if anticipating the argument of the apostolical or pa- 
pal succession, " but it must be a real Apostle ; give me 
one such, and I will reverence him however illiterate." ^ 
''But these," he returns to the charge, "are time-servers, 
waiting not on God but on the rise and flow of the tides, 
or the straw in the wind " — " a^igry lions to the small, 
fawning spaniels to the great " — " flatterers of ladies " 
— " snufiing up the smell of good dinners " — " ever at 
the gates not of the wise but of the powerful " ^ — '^ un- 
able to speak themselves, but having sufiicient sense to 
stop the tongues of those who can " — " made worse by 
their elevation " — " affecting manners not their own " — 
" the long beard, the downcast look, the head bowed, the 
subdued voice " — "the slow walk" — " the got-up de- 
votee " ^ — " the wisdom anywhere but in mind." 

If such is a faithful character of the prelates at the 
Council, it needed not any special provocation to jus- 
tify the well-known protests of Gregory, which, in fact, 
are even tame and flat after these sustained invectives. 

1 Ad Episc. pp. 200-230. 

2 De Episc. pp. 330-350, 635. 

3 niCTTOS iaKivaafievos, Ibid. 150. 



346 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVI. 

" Councils, congresses, we greet afar off, from which (to 
use very moderate terras) we have suffered many evils." 
" I will not sit in one of those Councils of geese and 
cranes." " I fly from every meeting of bishops, for I 
never saw a good end of any such,^ nor a termination, 
but rather an addition, of evils." 

The Council was thus left without a head, and Con- 
stantinople without a bishop. Accordingly one of the 
chief objects for which the Synod had been called to- 
gether was by its own folly frustrated. Whilst the 
Council hesitated, others took the matter into their own 
hands. The sokition was one which forcibly illustrates 
the ecclesiastical usages of those times, as unlike to those 
of our time as it is possible to conceive. 

There was a magistrate at Constantinople named Nec- 
tarius, remarkable for his dignified manners. He was a 
Election of i^ativc of Tarsus, and, being on the point of re- 
Nectarms. tuming home, called on his countr^niian Dio- 
dorus, Bishop of Tarsus, then at the Council, to ask 
whether he could take any letters for him. Diodorus, 
perhaps not without the partiality of a fellow-citizen, 
was so much struck by his venerable white locks and his 
splendid priestly appearance, tlmt he determined, if pos- 
sible, to have him raised to the vacant bishopric. He 
accordingly communicated his name to the Bishop of 
Antioch, who at first laughed at the notion as preposter- 
ous, but at last consented, partly as a favor, partly in 
jest, to add his name at the end of the list to be sub- 
mitted to the Emperor. 2 

Meantime, the claims of Nectarius appear to have 
been whispered about in the groups of loiterers who may 
always be seen in an Eastern city, and thus to have 
reached the Court. The Emperor, the moment he saw 

1 Ibid. voL ii. pp. 106, 110; De Vit. 855. 

2 Sozomen, vii. c. 8. 



Chap. XVI.] ELECTION OF NECTARIUS. 347 

the list, put his finger on Nectarins's name, ran over 
the other candidates, then came back to Nectarius, and 
declared him bishop, to the general amazement of the 
Council, who, nevertheless, at once acquiesced in the 
decision. 

Not only, however, was Nectarius a layman and a 
magistrate, but he was unbaptized, and not only unbap- 
tized, but he had purposely delayed his baptism, accord- 
ing to the bad practice of that age, in order to reserve for 
the last moment the cancelling of the sins of a somewhat 
frivolous youth and manhood. But this discovery was 
made too late, and the Emperor adhered to his decision 
with an obstinacy so surprising that it was afterwards 
supposed by Nectarins's. admirers that he must have had 
a special inspiration. In the opinion of some this strange 
episcopate turned out extremely well. But this is not 
the natural inference from the facts that we know con- 
cerning it.i Its beginning certainly was not creditable. 
Nectarius learned his episcopal duties as fast as he could 
from one of his Cilician friends, Cyriacus, Bishop of 
A dan a, whom, by the advice of Diodorus, he retained 
with him for some time.^ He also surrounded himself 
with a circle of his own countrymen, and amongst others 
was anxious to ordain as his chaplain and deacon, Mar- 
tyrius, a physician, who had been formerly one of his 
boon companions, but who now declined Nectarius's pro- 
posal on the characteristic ground, that he, having been 
baptized long before, had lost the chance of clearing him- 
self which Nectarius, by his postponement of the sacred 
rite, had so prudently reserved. 

Such was the new head of the Council and of the 
clergy of Constantinople to be introduced into his office 

1 The bad character of Nectarius's episcopate is fairly brought out by Tille- 
mont, vol. ix. p. 488. 

2 Sozomen, vii. 9. 



348 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTIONPLE. [Chap. XYI. 

by an accumulation, in the course of a few days, of the 
ceremonies of baptism, ordination, and consecration, each 
of which at that time implied weeks if not years of prep- 
aration. The scandal of Nectarius's elevation caused so 
much talk as to revive once more the hopes of Maximus 
the Dog, who seduced no less a person than Ambrose^ 
and the other bishops of the West to take up his cause. 
But Nectarius held his own, supported, as he was, by 
Emperor and Council, and also by a kindly note from 
his deposed rival, " cast away by the ungrateful city like 
a flake of foam or a fragment of sea-weed " on the Bos- 
phorus. 

Meanwhile, under these auspices, the Council hastened 
to wind up its affairs, and to approach the decision of 
the theological questions for which the Bishops had 
mainly been summoned. By this time they were so 
thoroughly demoralized and discredited by their internal 
quarrels, that the thirt^^-six heretical prelates who were 
present took courage to offer a determined front, and, to 
the surprise alike of Emperor and Council, fixed a day 
for their departure, and left Constantinople, protesting 
against any further attempts on the part of the assembly. 
But the majority which remained, however reduced in 
numbers and authority by this secession, were relieved to 
feel themselves at liberty to conclude their task without 
any further discussion. 

From the most authentic accounts it would appear 
that they confined themselves to issuing a series of de- 
crees or canons. Of these the first strongly con- 
constanti- dcmued in a mass the various heresies of the 
"°'^^" time. The second, third, and fourth endeav- 

ored to determine the jurisdictions and precedencies of 
the different Bishops of the Empire, annulling the elec- 

1 Tilleraont, vol. ix. pp. 501, 502. It was on this occasion that Maximus 
came out with an orthodox book in order to procure the favor of the Emperor. 



Chap. XVI.] CANONS OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 349 

tion of Maxim US, and giving to the see of Constantinople 
a rank second only to that of Rome, on the express 
ground that Constantinople was a second Rome. This 
order is important as embodying the fact that the sev- 
eral dignitaries of Christendom took their positions not 
according to the sacred or apostolic recollections of their 
sees, but according to the civil rank of the cities where 
they resided. The exaltation of Constantinople was as- 
suredly owing not to any apostolic dignity, but to its 
being the capital of Constantine, and the bishop of old 
Rome, in like manner, assuredly occupied the first place, 
not because he was the successor of Peter, but the bishop 
of the capital of the world. ^ 

It was 2 the 9th of July, and the summer heats im- 
pended, which, though tolerable at Constantinople, would 
render the return of the bishops to their several homes 
increasingly difficult. Theodosius, now that their work 
was over, felt that his was to begin, broke silence, and 
affirmed by an imperial decree the condemnation of the 
heresies which they had issued, and the rank of the bish- 
ops which they had established. Their proceedings were 
closed by a splendid funeral ceremony, in which the re- 
mains of Paul, the first bishop of the imperial city, were 
transferred in state from Ancyra to a church^ in Con- 
stantinople built for his rival and successor Macedonius. 
Paul had been present at the 'Council of Nicsea as a child 
of twelve years old. in attendance on Alexander, Bishop 
of Byzantium, and this incident of his posthumous hon- 

1 The 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Canons commonly ascribed to this Council are 
shown by Hefele {Concilien-GescMchte, ii. pp. 13, 14, 18-27) to be of a later 
date. See also Professor Hort's Dissertations, pp. 95-100. 

2 Hefele. {Concilien-Geschichte, ii. p. 12 ) 

3 The fame of the funeral was so great that a belief sprang up among the 
people, and especially among the ladies of Constantinople, that St. Paul the 
Apostle was buried in the church. (Sozomen, vii. c. 9.) It is a good instance 
of the growth of a legend from the confusion of an obscure with a celebrated 
name. Many such doubtless have arisen. 



350 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVI. 

ors thus seems to link together the two first assemblies 
of the Christian Church. 

It has been thought necessary to give this description 
of a Council, because it illustrates so; many feelings of 
the time. We now come to the question of 
constanti- what is commouly called the Creed of Constan- 
tinople. In the common traditions ^ of ecclesi- 
astical history, the third part of the Nicene Creed is said 
to have been added by the Fathers of the Council of 
Constantinople to resist a new heresy concerning the 
Third Hypostasis in the Trinity, and the Nicene Creed 
thus enlarged is designated as '* the Creed of Constanti- 
nople." But this designation, though not quite as erro- 
neous as that which speaks of the " Apostles' Creed," 
and of Athanasius's Creed, or which describes this al- 
tered confession as " the Nicene Creed," is very nearly 
as destitute of foundation. There is no trace in the rec- 
ords of the Council of any such formal enunciation of 
any new Creed ; on the contrary, they appeal to the ex- 
isting Nicene Creed as adequate for all theological pur- 
poses. Such too is the language of Gregory Nazianzen 
a few 3^ears after the meeting of the Council.^ 

Then follows the period of eighty years, which are 
filled by the two Councils of Ephesus and that of Chal- 
cedon. They are told in great detail by Fleury, Tille- 
mont, Milman, and Amed^e'Thierry. They are described 
with such liveliness in the contemporary historians and 
acts as to leave little to be desired. The short-hand writ- 
ers report to us not only every speech, but every cry of 
approval or disapproval, and every movement by which 

1 "Added by the Fathers of the first Council of Constantinople." (Cate- 
chism of the Council of Trent, Article VIII.) Long after the Council a chapel 
was shown in Constantinople, under the name of " Concord," where the creed 
was said to have been drawn up. (Tillemont, ix. p. 495, where the whole mat- 
ter is well discussed.) 

'-2 See Hefele. {Concilien-Gesehichte, ii. p. 11.) 



Chap. XVI.] THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 351 

the assembly was swayed to and fro. At times their re- 
ports were taken with difficulty, the violence of the chief 
actors being such that their notes were effaced as soon as 
written, and that their fingers were broken in the at- 
tempt to prevent them from writing. But they remain 
a wonderful, perhaps a unique, monument of the point 
to which stenography had reached in the fourth century. 

The dispute which occasioned the Council of Ephesus 
was the refusal of Nestorius,^ Archbishop of Constanti- 
nople, to describe the Virgin Mary by a Greek expres- 
sion to which the Western languages furnish no exact 
equivalent. It suffices to state that in no Protestant 
church could the expression be used without grave of- 
fence. Never was there a time when Pascal's humorous 
description of theological terms wag more applicable : 
*' The difference between us is so subtle that we <jan 
hardly perceive it ourselves ; any one else would find it 
difficult to understand. Happy," he exclaims in right- 
eous indignation, " are the nations who never heard of the 
word. Happy are they who preceded its birth." ^ Had 
Nestorius been Cyril, or Cyril Nestorius, the two parties 
would have changed accordingly.^ The expression over 
which the battle was fought was never admitted into any 
creed of the Church. Neither at Ephesus nor Chalcedon 
was there on this ground any addition to what already 
existed. 

We must not suppose that the Councils acted from 

1 I have given the titles of the Roman, Constantinopolitan, and Alexandrian 
sees as they wei-e at the time. " Pope " and "Patriarch " were later. 

2 Provincial Letters I. and III. For an instructive discussion of the intrica- 
cies, contradictions, and obscurities of the theological terms used in these con- 
troversies, see Cardinal Newman's History of the Avians, Appendix, 432-444. 

3 How the same expressions become orthodox and heterodox in turn is seen 
from the Homoousion (see Lectures on Eastern Church, Lecture iv. p. 137), and 
from the adoption by Nestorius and the denial by Cyril of words officially in- 
corporated with the Creed: "Incarnate of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin 
Mary." (Professor Hort's Dissertations^ 112.) 



352 THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. [Chap. XVI. 

spontaneous conviction. A determined mob from Con- 
stantinople — from Syria — from Egj^pt — pressed upon 
them from without. It was like the tyranny which the 
Clubs exercised over the Convention in the time of the 
French Revolution. The monks were for the most part 
laymen, but laymen charged with all the passions of 
clergy. The religious orders of the West have never 
been used for such purposes, nor, it must be added, sub- 
jected to such treatment. We are told at the beginning 
of the conflict that Nestorius himself was the aggressor. 
The monks, who were the first to catch any scent of 
heresy, were in the first instance stripped and lashed with 
loaded whips — laid on the ground and beat as they lay. 
But these passions and penalties were not confined to 
one party. Cyril brouglit with him from Alexandria the 
savage guard of his palace, the Parabolani, or " Death- 
defiers," whose original function was to bur}^ the dead, 
but whose duty it now became to protect the Archbishop 
against all enemies; the sailors, whose rough life laid 
them open to any one who hired them ; the sturdy por- 
ters and beggars, and the bathing-men from the public 
baths. These men sate at the doors of the Council, and 
the streets ran red with the blood which they shed with- 
out scruple. 

Barsumas, the fierce monk with his band of anchorites 
as fierce as himself, cant^ thither with his reputation 
ready made for knocking heretics on the head with the 
luige maces which he and his companions wielded with 
terrible force on any one who opposed them. The whole 
was crowned at the critical moment by the entrance of a 
body of soldiers with drawn swords and charged lances, 
or with chains to carry off the refractory members to 
prison. Some hid themselves under the benches ; some 
were compelled to sign the decrees in blank. Flavian, 
Archbishop of Constantinople, lay watching for the mo- 



I 



Chap. XVI.] SINISTER INFLUENCES. 353 

ment of escape, when Dioscorus, the Archbishop of Alex- 
andria, perceiving him, struck him in the face with his 
fist; the two deacons, one of them afterwards himself 
Archbishop of Alexandria, seized him round the waist 
and dashed him to the ground. Dioscorus kicked the 
dying man on the sides and chest. The monks of Bar- 
sumas struck him with their clubs as he lay on the 
ground. Barsumas himself cried out in the Syrian lan- 
guage, "Kill him, kill him." He expired from this sav- 
age treatment in the course of a few days. 

Such were the scenes of disorder, reaching their height 
in the Council, afterwards called the Robber Council at 
Ephesus,^ but of which the indications spread through 
the whole period. Dioscorus's violence differed from that 
of Cyril in degree only, not in kind. The same crowd of 
ruffians were in all these assemblies, and the fate which 
threatened the hesitating bishops was similar. 

Another influence, more gentle and more orderly bat 
equally potent, was that of the Imperial Court. The- 
odosius II. and his wife Eudocia — Marcian, the honest 
soldier, and his wife Pulcheria — were never absent from 
the thoughts of the leaders of the assemblies. To per- 
suade, cajole, circumvent the Imperial emissaries was the 
incessant effort of either side. It was not by accident 
that the decision of each of these assemblies coincided 
with the opinions of the high personages then reigning 
in the court. The wavering mind of Theodosius IT. was 
the point to be w^on at the Council of Ephesus. Chry- 
saphius, the great courtier, was the chief supporter of the 
Robber Council. Marcian and Pulcheria received the 
tumultuous acclamations of the Council of Chalcedon. 
" To Marcian the new Constantine — to Pulcheria the 
new Helena." The personal motives of each of these 

1 The decrees of the Council were directed to be revised at Chalcedon, but the 
Imperial Government declined to condemn the Council itself. 
23 



854 COUNCILS OF EPHESUS AND CHALCEDON. [Chap. XYI. 

high personages entered deeply into the controversy. 
Theodosius was the enemy of any one who brought him 
into trouble. Chrysaphius was the enemy of Archbishop 
Flavian, who had refused him the accustomed fees at 
Easter. Pulcheria was influenced by jealousy of her sis- 
ter-in-law Eudocia and her hatred of Chrysaphius. The 
letters of the Emperors were reckoned as " sacred." The 
Councils were convoked entirely at their summons. 

Another baser element in these considerations was the 
gross bribery practised by Cyril. Together with this 
acted the influences, not unusual in such controversies — 
the desertion of the unpopular cause by half-hearted 
friends ; Nestorius abandoned by those who had looked 
up to him as their oracle — Dioscorus left alone in the 
Council of Chalcedon by those who had followed him 
through all his violences in the Robber Council. There 
was also that which always produces an effect on a mixed 
assembly — the horror expressed by weak-minded disci- 
ples, who profess to be and are really shocked by some 
rash expression on the part of their master, and speaking 
with bated breath and tears in their eyes — Acacius of 
Mitylene and Theodotus of Ancyra ; or again some argu- 
mentative dialectician who wishes to push all arguments 
to tlieir extremities, such as Eusebius of Dorylseum, the 
old advocate who never would leave the simple Eutyches 
to himself. 

There were also the rivalries of the great sees ; Alex- 
andria, twice over, in the person of Cyril and in the per- 
Personai ^"^^ ^^ Dloscorus, irritated by the preponderance 
influences. ^£ Constantinople and of Antioch — Rome, at 
the Robber Council, irritated in the person of its legates, 
who vainly endeavored to get a hearing for their master's 
letter. There was the opening for every kind of pri- 
vate rancor — discontented deacons, ambitious priests, de- 
nouncing their bishops when the occasion offered, before 



Chap. XVI.] LOCAL INFLUENCES. 355 

the commissioners sent down by the Imperial Govern- 
ment. There was the pardonable weakness of the bish- 
ops, afraid of their constituencies, afraid of their congre- 
gations, afraid of their clergy. There were aged prelates 
prostrate on the floor, with their faces on the ground, cry- 
ing, " Have mercy upon us ; have pity upon us." " They 
will kill us at home." " Have pity on our gray hairs." 
There were also the bishops of Asia, alarmed for their 
popularity if they sacrificed the privileges of the see of 
Ephesus. " Have pity upon us ; they will murder our 
children ; have pity on our children ; have pity on us." 
It is a scene which reminds us of the most pitiable scenes 
in the elections of some of our modern representative 
asseuiblies. 

A curious circumstance must be noticed as confirming 
the decisions of both assemblies. The claim of Ephesus 
was suggested on the ground of its accessibility Locaiin- 
by land and sea, and its ample supply of pro- ^"«°^^s- 
visions in the wide plain of the Cayster. But there was 
a further cause not mentioned, not perhaps occurring to 
those who summoned the Council, but which materially 
contributed to its final result. Ephesus was the burial- 
place, according to tradition, of the Virgin Mother, who 
with John the Evangelist had taken refuge there in the 
close of the first century. The church in which the as- 
sembly was to be held was the only one in the world as 
yet dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In the mind of the 
Ephesian populace she had taken the place of the sacred 
image of Diana which had so excited them four centuries 
earlier. The passions of the people, as described in the 
nineteenth chapter of the Acts, might seem to have been 
recalled in some of the scenes of the Council. All these 
circumstances contributed to the success of the anti-Nes- 
torian cause, and, although the honor of the Virgin was 
not the primary cause of the agitation of the question, 



356 COUNCILS OF EPHESUS AND CHALCEDON. [Chap. XVI. 

the triumph of Cyril's party m Ephesus was celebrated 
as such. 

The reasons for the selection of Chalcedon were still 
more remarkable. It was the nearest approach to Con- 
stantinople without being in the city itself. Chalcedon 
was Scutari. It was that splendid promontory dear to 
Englishmen, dear to all who have ever from its height 
contemplated that glorious view. Even in that age the 
beauty of the situation attracted the admiration of spec- 
tators. But it was yet more than this. The church in 
which the Council was to be held was that which con- 
tained the remains ^ of the virgin martyr St. Euphemia. 
She was the oracle, the miracle-worker, of the neighbor- 
hood. The Archbishop of Constantinople on great emer- 
gencies entered the shrine, and (like the Bishop of Petra 
on like occasions with the sacred fire at Jerusalem) in- 
serted a sponge into the tomb, which he drew out filled 
with the martyr's blood, which was then distributed, as a 
cure for all evils, to all parts of the empire. It was in 
this same tomb that at the close of the Council the mag- 
istrates and bishops placed the disputed documents which 
contained the faith of the assembly ; and tradition added 
that the dead woman raised in her hand the roll which 
contained the true doctrine,^ and that the roll which con- 
tained the heretical doctrine lay dishonored at her feet. 

The whole proceedings of the Council of Ephesus have 
been summarized by an eminent personage ^ who knew 
what he was saying, and said what he meant. 

" Even those Councils which were oecumenical have 
nothing to boast of in regard to the Fathers, taken indi-^ 
vidually, which compose them. They appear as the an- 
tagonist host in a battle, not as the shepherds of their 
people 

1 They were afterwards transferred to Saint Sophia, and subsequently to the 
Abbey of Saint Euphemia in Calabria. 

2 I have seen pictures at Athos representing this tradition. 

8 Cardinal Newman's Historical Sketches, pp. 335-337, 350, 351. 



Chap. XVI.] CARDINAL NEWMAN'S DESCRIPTION. 357 

" ' What is the good of a Council,' Cyril would say, 
'when the controversy is already settled without one?' 
in something hke the frame of mind of the great Cardinal 
Duke of Wellington years ago, when he spoke J^gTcrTption 
in such depreciatory terms of a ' county meet- ciV^/Ephe"-" 
ing.' . . . . How the Emperor fixed the meeting ^"^• 
of the Council for Pentecost, June 7 ; how Nestorius 
made his appearance with a body-guard of two imperial 
cohorts; how Cyril brought up his fifty Egyptian Bishops, 
staunch and eager, not forgetting to add to them the 
stout seamen of his transports ; how Memnon had a fol- 
lowing of forty bishops, and reinforced them with a like 
body of sturdy peasants from his farms ; how the assem- 
bled Fathers were scared and bewildered by these prepa- 
rations for battle, and, wishing it all over, waited with 
impatience a whole fortnight for the Syrian bishops while 
Cyril preached in the churches against Nestorius ; how in 
the course of this fortnight some of their number fell sick 
and died ; how the Syrians, on the other hand, had been 
thrown out by the distance of their sees from Antioch 
(their place of rendezvous), from the length of the land 
journey thence to Ephesus, by the wet weather and the 
bad roads, by the loss of their horses, and by the fatigue 
of their forced marches ; how they were thought by Cyr- 
il's party to be unpunctual on purpose, but by them- 
selves to be most unfortunate in their tardiness, because 
they wished to shelter Nestorius ; how, when they were 
now a few days' journey from Ephesus, they sent on 
hither an express to herald their approach, but how Cyril 
would not wait beyond the fortnight, though neither the 
Western bishops nor even the Pope's legates had yet ar- 
rived ; how on June 22 he opened the Council in spite 
of a protest from sixty-one out of one hundred and fifty 
bishops there assembled ; how within one summer's day 
he cited, condemned, deposed, and degraded Nestorius, 



358 COUNCILS OF EPHESUS AND CHALCEDON. [Chap. XVI. 

and passed liis twelve theses of doctrine called 'Anathe- 
matisms,' whicli the Pope apparently had never seen, and 
which the Syrian bishops, then on their way to Ephesus, 
had repudiated the year before as Apollinarian ; and how, 
as if reckless of this imputation, he suffered to stand 
among the formal testimonies to guide the Bishops in 
their decision gathered from the Fathers, and still extant, 
an extract from a writing of Timotheus, the Apollinarian, 
if not of Apollinarius himself, ascribing this heretical 
document to Pope Julius, the friend of Athanasius ; how 
in the business of the Council he showed himself confi- 
dential with Eutyches, afterwards the author of that very 
Monophysite heresy of which Apollinarius was the fore- 
runner ; how on the fifth da}^ after these proceedings the 
Syrian bishops arrived, and at once, with the protection 
of an armed force, and without the due forms of ecclesi- 
astic law, held a separate Council of forty-three bishops, 
Theodoret being one of them, and ancithematized Cyril 
and Memnon and their followers ; and how the Council 
terminated in a discussion, which continued for nearly 
two years after it, till at length Cyril, John, and Theodo- 
ret, and the others on either side, made up the quarrel 
by mutual explanations — all this is matter of history." 

Such is the summary of one not likely to overcharge 
the picture of the misdeeds of the Council of Ephesus. 
We will add the literal report of some of the scenes that 
took place at the Council of Chalcedon. It is from the 
Acts of the Council.^ 

" The illustrious Judges and the honorable Senate or- 
dered that the most reverend Bishop Theodoret should 
Report of Gutcr, that he may be a partaker of the Council, 
of^chS'^ because the holy Archbishop Leo had restored 
^°"- the bishopric to him ; and the most sacred and 

pious Emperor has determined that he is to be present at 

1 Hardouin, ii. 74. 



Chap. XVI.] REPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 359 

the Holy Council. And on the entrance of Theodoret, 
the most reverend bishops of Egypt, lUyricum, and Pal- 
estine called out : ' Have mercy upon us ! The faith is 
destroyed. The Canons cast him out. Cast out the 
teacher of Nestorius.' The most religious bishops of the 
East and those of Pontus, Asia, and Thrace shouted out : 
' We had to sign a blank paper ; we were scourged, and 
so we signed. Cast out the Manichseans ; cast out the 
enemies of Flavian ; cast out the enemies of the Faith.' 
Dioscorus, the most religious Bishop of Alexandria, said : 
' Why is Cyril cast out ? He it is who is anathematized 
by Theodoret.' The Eastern and' Pontic and Asian and 
Thracian most religious bishops shouted out : ' Cast out 
Dioscorus the murderer. Who does not know the deeds 
of Dioscorus ? ' The Egyptian and the Illyrian and the 
Palestinian most religious bishops shouted out : ' Long 
years to the Empress ! ' The Eastern and the most relig- 
ious bishops with them shouted out : ' Cast out the mur- 
derers ! ' The Egyptians and the most religious bishops 
with them shouted out : ' The Empress has cast out Nes- 
torius. Long years to the Orthodox Empress. The 
Council will not receive Theodoret.' Theodoret, the 
most religious bishop, came up into the midst and said : 
* I have offered petitions to the most godlike, most relig- 
ious and Christ-loving masters of the world, and I have 
related the disasters which have befallen me, and I claim 
that they shall be read.' The most illustrious Judges 
and the most honorable Senate said : ' Theodoret, the 
most religious bishop, having received his proper place 
from the most holy Archbishop of the renowned Rome, 
has occupied now the place of an accuser. Wherefore 
suffer that there be not confusion at the hearing, and that 
the things which have had a beginning may be finished, 
for prejudice from the appearance of the most religious 
Theodoret will occur to no one, reserving afterwards 



860 THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. [Chap. XVI. 

every argument for you and for him if you desire to make 
one on one side or the other; especially if without writing 
there appears to be a testimony to his orthodoxy from 
the most religious Bishop of Antioch, the Great City.' 
And after Theodoret, the most religious bishop, had sat 
down in the midst, the Eastern and the most religious 
bishops who were with them shouted out: ' He is worthy! 
He is worth}^ ! ' The Egyptians and tlie most religious 
bishops who were with them shouted out : ' Do not call 
him a bishop. He is not a bishop. Cast out the fighter 
against God ! Cast out the Jew ! ' The Easterns and 
the most religious bishops who were with them shouted 
out : 'The Orthodox for the Council ! Cast out the 
rebels ! Cast out the murderers ! ' The Egyptians and 
the most religious bishops who were with them shouted 
out : ' Cast out the fighter against God ! Cast out the 
insulter against Christ! Long years to tbe Empress! 
Long years to the Emperor ! Long years to the Ortho-' 
dox Emperor! Theodoret has anathematized Cyril.' The 
Easterns and the most religious bishops who were with 
them shouted out : ' Cast out the murderer Dioscorus ! ' 
The Egyptians and the most religious bishops with them 
shouted out : ' Long years to the Senate ! He has not 
the right of speech. He is expelled from the whole 
Sjmod ! ' Basil, the most religious Bishop of Trajanopolis, 
in the province of Rhodope, rose up and said: ' Theodo- 
ret has been condemned by us.' The Egyptians and the 
most religious bishops with them shouted out : ' Theodo- 
ret has accused Cyril. We cast out Cyril if we receive 
Theodoret. The Canons cast out Theodoret. God has 
turned away from him.' The most illustrious Judges 
and the most honorable Senate said : ' These vulgar cries 
are not worthy of bishops, nor will they assist either side. 
Suffer, therefore, the reading of all the documents.' The 
Egyptians and the most religious bishops wdth them 



Chap. XVI.] REPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 361 

shouted out : ' Cast out one mau, and we will all hear. 
We shout out in the Cause of Religion. We say these 
things for the sake of the Orthodox Faith.' The most 
illustrious Judges and the honorable Senate said : ' Rather 
acquiesce, in God's name, that the hearing of the docu- 
ments should take place, and concede that all shall be 
read in proper order.' And at last they were silent. 
And Constantine, the most holy Secretary and Magis- 
trate of the Divine Synod, read these documents." 

One more painful scene must be given — the insist- 
ance that Theodoret should pronounce a curse on his an- 
cient friend. '' The most reverend bishops all stood 
before the rails of the most holy altar and shouted : 
' Theodoret must now anathematize Nestorius.' Theo- 
doret, the most reverend bishop, passed into the midst 
and said : ' I gave my petition to the most diviuQ and 
religious Emperor, and I gave the documents to the most 
reverend bishops occupying the place of the most sacred 
Archbishop Leo ; and, if you think fit, they shall be sent 
to you, and you will know what I think.' The most 
reverend bishops shouted : ' We want nothing to be 
read — -only anathematize Nestorius.' Theodoret, the 
most reverend bishop, said ; ' I was brought up by the 
orthodox, I was taught by the orthodox, I have preached 
orthodoxy, and not only Nestorius and Eutyches, but 
any man who thinks not rightly, I avoid and count him 
an alien.' The most reverend bishops shouted out: 
' Speak plainly ; anathema to Nestorius and his doctrine 
— anathema to Nestorius and to those who befriend 
him ! ' " Theodoret, the most reverend bishop, said ; 
" Of truth I do not speak, except that the Creed is pleas- 
ing to God. I came to satisfy you, not because I think 
of my country, not because I desire honor, but because I 
have been falsely accused, and I anathematize every im- 
penitent heretic. I anathematize Nestorius and Euty- 



362 THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. [Chap. XYI. 

ches, and every one who says that there are two Sons." 
Whilst he was speaking, the most reverend bishops 
shouted out : " Speak plainly ; anathematize Xestorius 
and those who think with him." Theodoret, the most 
reverend bishop, said: "Unless I set forth at length my 
faith I cannot speak. I believe " — And whilst he 
spoke the most reverend bishops shouted : " He is a her- 
etic ! he is a Nestorian ! Thou art the heretic ! Anath- 
ema to Nestorius and to any one who does not say that 
the Holy Virgin Mary is the Parent of God, and who 
divides the only begotten Son into two Sons." The- 
odoret, the most reverend bishop, said : " Anathema to 
Nestorius and to whoever denies that the Holy Virgin 
Mary is the Parent of God, and who divides the only be- 
gotten Son into two Sons. I have subscribed the defi- 
nition of faith and the epistle of the most holy Arch- 
bishop Leo." And after all this he said, " Farewell." ^ 

It is the conduct of the 3d and 4th Councils in their 
collective capacity which more than justifies the objec- 
tions of Gregory Xazianzen to the 2d Council. It is this 
which represents the official voice of the clergy of the 
Church in that age. The only glimmer of common sense 
and charity is in the conduct of the Imperial Commis- 
sioners, who controlled and guided the Council of Chal- 
cedon. The faithfulness of the reporters lets us see step 
by step Theodoret's agonizing reluctance openly to disa- 
vow his friend, and at last his indignant •' Farewell." 

But there is discernible at times the indication of a 
better feeling through this furious party spirit. John of 
Moderate Antioch with ''the eastern bishops " — Flavian 
tendencies, j^iij^ggif ^^ ^i^q earlier period — resolutely con- 
tinued to insist on the duty of conciliatory measures. 
The Archbishop of Rome, also, especially after the ex- 
perience of the Robber Council, recommended a halt in 

1 Hardouin, ii. 448. 



Chap. XVL] MODERATE TENDENCIES. 363 

the vehement pursuit after heresy, and to be content 
with letting things alone. Above all there is the one 
man, Theodore t, whose position, with many drawbacks, 
may in some respects be compared to the isolated posi- 
tion of Lord Falkland. He had the courage to defend 
his former friend Nestorius — to declare that he had 
never been properly deposed, and that his successor 
would be an usurper. He submitted at the last, and 
brought his ancient friend Alexander of Hierapolis to 
submit also, but only for the sake of peace. He rejoiced 
with an exceeding joy on hearing of the repose of the 
Christian world on the death of the turbulent Cyril — 
" The East and Egypt are henceforth united ; envy is 
dead, and heresy is buried with her." ^ He was still at- 
tacked with ignoble animosity by Dloscorus. But on the 
whole, and with a formal submission on his part, he was 
accepted. The admiration in which he was held is to a 
certain degree an anticipation of the judgment of the 
English historian, — " Who would not meet the judg- 
ment of the Divine Redeemer loaded with the errors of 
Nestorius rather than with the barbarities of Cyril ? " ^ 
It may also be a comment on the saying of the contem- 
porary Isidore, " Sympathy such as Theodoret's may not 
see clearly, but antipathy such as Cyril's does not see at 
all." 3 

It was in accordance with this more moderate feeling 
that we may believe the decree to have been issued 
which has made the Council of Ephesus memorable. 

In the sixth session, in a spirit which endeavored to 
control the ardor of controversy, it was ordered that no 

1 The genuineness of this letter has been doubted, but chiefly because of its 
attack on Cyril. It was quoted against Theodoret at the fifth General Council. 
See the question argued on both sides in Hefele, iii. p. 851. 

2 Milman's Latin Christianity, i. 145. 

3 Quoted in Cardinal Newman's Historical Sketches, ii. 356. The whole let- 
ter is worth reading. 



364 THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. [Chap. XVI. 

one should set forth or put together or compose any creed 
Decree of other ^ than that defined at Nic^a on pain of 
JStl deposition if clergy, of excommunication if laity. 
new Creed, rp^^ original form of the Creed of Nicsea, which 
this decree is intended to guard, must here be given : — 

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all 
things both visible and invisible ; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, 
the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only begotten, that 
is to say, from the substance of the Father ; God of God, Light 
of Light, true God of true God ; begotten, not made ; of one 
substance with the Father ; by Whom all things were made, 
both things in heaven and things on the earth ; Who for us 
men and for our salvation came down, and was made flesh ; was 
made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day ; ascended 
into the heavens ; cometh to judge the quick and the dead ; and 
in the Holy Spirit. But those who say there was a time when 
He was not, and before being begotten He was not, and that 
He came out of what was not existing, or that He is of another 
person (vTroa-Taaem) or essence (ovo-ta), or is created, or is vari- 
able, or is changeable, — all these the Catholic and Apostolic 
Church anathematizes. 

With this decision the Council of Ephesus believed 
that it had forever excluded the possibility of any new 
confession of faith, and had placed the Creed of Nicgea 
on an impregnable basis. The motive is obvious : to 
protect what had already been done in the first General 
Council, and to guard against the multiplication of 
creeds, of which that age had already had sufficient ex- 
perience. It is curious that in both particulars this de- 
cree entirely failed. The Creed of Nicsea, as thus set 
forth, has now been discontinued throughout the whole 
Church of the West, and, with the exception of the 

1 It has been argued that erepav means of "a discordant creed," and is dis- 
tinguished from aw^jv, "another." This is completely disproved by Professor 
Swainson, Nicene and Apostles' Creeds Compared, p. 166, who shows that the 
two words were used promiscuously. 



Chap. XVL] CREED OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 365 

Monophysite, Nestorian, and perhaps the Armenian 
Churches,^ throughout the whole Church of the East. 
Its anathemas are no longer recited, although in the time 
of its first promulgation they were regarded as of the ut- 
most importance ; ^ and in other respects, as shall be no- 
ticed presently, its contents have undergone serious mod- 
ifications. The creeds which it was intended to prevent 
have been multiplied beyond imagination in the number- 
less creeds of the fifth century, the Athanasian Creed of 
the ninth, the confessions of Trent, Augsburg, Geneva, 
and London of the sixteenth century. 

It is by no means clear by what process the change 
was effected, but we can faintly trace it through the dis- 
cussions of the time. The first step, as usual 
in these innovations, was the most momentous, constanti- 
Previous to the Council of Constantinople, 
which, as we have already seen, adopted no creed of its 
own, there was a creed existing in the writings of Epi- 
phanius,^ which agreed in many respects with the creed 
now commonly, but erroneously, known as the Creed of 
Constantinople. Besides this, there is a considerable re- 
semblance between the present form of that creed and 
what is preserved to us as the Creed of Jerusalem * in the 
writings of Cyril, the bishop of that city. There is, fur- 
ther, a late tradition that the form of the creed now pro- 
fessing to be that of Constantinople was drawn up by 
Gregory of Nyssa, who was present, as we have seen, in 
that assembly. But it was in the Council of Chalcedon, 
for the first time, that we have the startling announce- 
ment made by Aetius, Archdeacon of Constantinople, 
that he was going to read what had been determined 

1 See Swainson's Nicene and Apostles' Creeds Compared, p. 143. 

2 See Lectures on Eastern Chu7'ch, Lect. IV. 

3 Epiphanius, Anchoratus (pp. 77-83), A. d. 374. 

4 See Hort's Dissertations, p. 74, in which it is argued with much learning 
that the Creed was on the basis of the Creed of Jerusalem. 



366 CREED OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVI. 

upon by the one hundred and fifty bishops congregated 
in Constantinople. It is conjectured that, from one or 
other of the three sources indicated, from the writings of 
Epiphanius, or of Cyril of Jerusalem, or of Gregory of 
Nyssa, this creed may have been the subject of some 
conversation in the Council of Constantinople, and that 
this was made the ground or the pretext of its being rep- 
resented by Aetius as the Creed of that Council itself. 
The accuracy of Aetius, as of the other members of the 
Council, is not above suspicion.^ The creed was as fol- 
lows : — 

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of 
heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible ; and in 
one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten, Who 
was begotten from the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, 
true God of true God ; begotten, not made ; of one substance 
with the Father, by Whom all things exist ; Who for us men 
and for our salvation came down and was made flesh of the 
Holy Ghost and of Mary the Virgin, and was made man, and 
was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was 
buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 
and ascended into the heavens, and sitteth on the right baud of 
the Father, and cometh again with glory to judge the quick and 
the dead ; of whose kingdom there shall be no end ; and in the 
Spirit, which is holy, which is sovereign and lifegiving, which 
proceedeth from the Father ; Which with the Father and the 
Son is worshipped and glorified ; Which spake by the prophets ; 
in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church ; we acknowledge 
one Baptism for the remission of sins ; we look for the resur- 
rection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. 

This creed, although twice formally recited at the Coun- 
cil of Chalcedon, yet was not allowed to take the exclu- 
sive place given by the Council of Ephesus to the Creed 

1 Swainson's Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, pp. 94-96 ; Tillemont, ix. p. 421; 
xiv. p. 442 ; Hort's Dissertations, pp. 74-76. 



Chap. XVI.] CREED OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 367 

of Nicaea. The decree of Ephesus was still sufficiently 
powerful to restrain the Chalcedonian Fathers from in- 
troducing this creed, so-called of Constantinople, into the 
place of the one authorized Confession of Faith. But as 
time rolled on this provision was doubly set aside. The 
Creed of Nicsea, as we have seen, is now read in no Euro- 
pean church ; and the creed, professedly of Constanti- 
nople, really the production of some unknown church or 
father, gradually superseded it. The Emperor Justin, 
in the year 568, first ordered that it should be recited 
in the public services of the Church ; and from that mo- 
ment it has assumed its present position. 

It is difficult to trace precisely the motives by which 
this great change was effected. It would appear, how- 
ever, to have been the result of that lull in ecclesiastical 
controversy which succeeded to the terrible scenes of the 
Ephesian and Chalcedonian Councils. ^ Some of the ad- 
ditions to the Nicene Creed might have seemed to have 
incurred the censure of the Ephesian Council not only in 
the letter but in the spirit. The clause, " He was begot- 
ten of the Holy Ghost and of Mary the Virgin," ^ did 
not exist in the Creed of Nicaea, and was in fact vehe- 
mently contested in the Council of Ephesus, as having 
been brought forward by Nestorius and as expressive of 
his view. The clauses also relating to the Divine Spirit 
were not contained in the original Creed of Nicaea, and 
were perhaps added in order to meet the Macedonian 
heretics. The omission or transposition of the words 
"God of God," "the Only begotten," "that is to say, 
from the substance of the Father," are, to say the least, 
unwarranted interferences with a document where every 
word and every position of every word are deemed of im- 
portance. But the Creed of Chalcedon (or Constantino- 

1 Hort's Dissertations, pp. 110-136. 

2 Ibid. p. 112. 



868 CREED OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVI. 

pie), however doubtful its origin, may still be regarded 
as, on the whole, an improvement on that memorable 
document which it supplanted, although under the pen- 
alty of deprivation of their orders to all the clergy and 
bishops who use it, and of excommunication to the laity 
who adopt it. The acquiescence (if so be) of the original 
Council of Constantinople in a private document which 
came before them, sanctioned by the authority of Cyril 
of Jerusalem and of Gregory of Nyssa, would be in con- 
formity with the abstinence from further dogmatism into 
which they were driven almost inevitably by a weariness 
of the whole transaction in which they were involved. 
With this also would agree the more moderate counsels 
which we have already noticed, belonging to what may 
be called the central part}^ at Ephesus and Chalcedon, and 
the deference at last paid to Theodoret. The total omis- 
sion of the Nicene anathemas was a distinct step in this 
direction. The condemnation of any one who expressed 
that the Son was of a different "person " (or " hyposta- 
sis ") from the Father might well become startling to 
those who were becoming familiar with the later formula, 
which at last issued in the directl}^ contrary proposition 
by pronouncing a like anathema on any one who main- 
tained that He was of the same " hypostasis." 

It was one of the constant charges against Basil and 
Gregory that they were unwilling to define precisely and 
polemically the doctrine of the Divine Spirit. Those 
who read the exposition of this doctrine as set forth in 
the Greek ^ of these clauses will be surprised to see how 
wonderfully the harshnesses and roughnesses that appear 
in the English or Latin translation disappear in the sub- 
tle, yet simple, language of the original. What may 

1 To rrvuvixa, to Kvpuov, to ^ojottolov, to e/c toO Harpoi eKwopevo/jievov, v> cvv Uarpi 
Ka\ Yioi crvfJiTrpoa-Kwovixevov (rvvSo^a^ixepov, to XoA^o-av Std tSjv UpofrjTiiiv' compared 

with " the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceedeth from the Father and the 
Son," etc. (See Hort, pp. 82, 85, 86.) 



Chap. XVI.] ITS MERITS. 869 

have been the feelings of the followers of Macedonius we 
know not ; but we may be certain that no sect now exist- 
ing, whether belonging to the so-called orthodox or the 
so-called heretical churches, could find any difficulty in 
accepting, in their original form, the abstract and general 
phrases in which the Biblical doctrine of the imperson- 
ality and neutrality of the Sacred Influence is set forth. 

Again, the limitation of the holy inspiration (the 
" Holy Spirit spoke by the prophets ") is a remarkable 
instance at once of insight into the true nature of the 
Biblical writings, and also of the moderation of the high- 
est minds of that age, compared with the fanciful and ex- 
travagant theories that have sometimes prevailed in mod- 
ern times on that subject. The other parts of the Bible, 
the other writings of the great and good, are no doubt 
the offspring of the Divine Mind, but it is in the pro- 
phetical writings that the essence of Christian morality 
and doctrine is brought out. 

Yet once more, the definition of Baptism (" I believe 
in one Baptism for the remission of sins "), which has 
been sometimes quoted as if decisive of the whole ques- 
tion then at issue on the intricate question of the mystical 
or moral effect of Baptism, is couched in terms so stu- 
diously general as to include not only Christian Baptism, 
but the Baptism of John, from which, in the language of 
technical theology, no transcendental operations could be 
expected. Only by the most violent anachronisms and 
distortions of language can the scholastic doctrines of the 
sudden transformation of baptized infants be imported 
into words which embrace the doctrine of Baptism in the 
largest formula which the comprehensive language of 
Scripture has furnished.-^ 

Again, the questionable phrase, " the Resurrection of 

1 See Chapter I. 
24 



370 CREED OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Chap. XVI. 

the Flerh " in the Apostles' Creed is here represented by 
the Biblical expression, " Resurrection of the Dead." 

Lastly, it is to be observed that Nicephorus ascribes all 
these changes to Gregory of Nyssa, whose great name, if 
he in any way took them up, would, more than any other 
single cause, have led to their popular acceptance, not 
only from his own learning and genius, but from the fame 
of his brother Basil, and from the influence — at any rate 
at the beginning of the Council — of his friend. The 
tradition that these words were derived from Gregory of 
Nyssa, whether borne out by historical evidence or not, 
has never been disputed on dogmatical grounds, is im- 
portant as showing that the orthodox Eastern Church was 
not ashamed of receiving its most solemn declaration of 
Christian faith from one who, had he lived in our times, 
would have been pronounced by some as a dangerous 
heretic. There can be no doubt in the mind of any one ^ 
who has examined his writings — and it is freely admit- 
ted, indeed urged, by theologians without the slightest 
suspicion of latitudinarianism — that Gregory of Nyssa 
held the opinion shared with him b}^ Origen, and al- 
though less distinctly by Gregory of Nazianzus, that 
there was a hope for the final restoration of the wicked 
in the other world. And whether or not he actually 
drew up the concluding clauses of the so-called Creed of 
Constantinople, there is no doubt that Gregory of Nyssa 
was present at the Council of Constantinople — that he, 
if any one, must have impressed his own sense upon 

1 See especially Catech. Orat. ch. xxvi. De iis qui premature abripiuntur, 
ch. XV. De Anima et Resurrectione (on Phil. ii. 10; 1 Cor. xv. 28). The con- 
trary has been maintained bv a recent writer, Vincenzo, in four volumes, on the 
■writings of Gregory of Nvssa. But this is done, not as in former times (Tille- 
mont, vol. ix. p. 602), by denying the genuineness of the passages cited in fa- 
vor of the milder view, but by quoting passages from other parts of his works, 
containing apparently contradictory sentiments. This might be done equally in 
the case of Origen, of Archbishop Tillotson, and of Bishop Newton, and to any 
one who knows the writings of that age prove absolutely nothing. 



Chap. XVL] ITS MERITS. 371 

them — and that to him, and through him to the Council, 
the clause which speaks of the " life in the world to 
come " must have included the hope that the Divine jus- 
tice and mercy are not controlled by the powers of evil, 
that sin is not eternal, and that in that " world to come " 
punishment will be corrective and not final, and will be 
ordered by a Love and Justice, the height and depth of 
which is beyond the narrow thoughts of man to con- 
ceive. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 

The Ten Commandments were always in the Chris- 
tian Church united with the Lord's Prayer and the 
Creed (whether longer or shorter) as a Christian Insti- 
tution. In earlier Catholic times they were used as a 
framework of moral precepts ; in Protestant times they 
were written conspicuously in the churches. In either 
case there are important principles involved in the prom- 
inence thus given to them which demand consideration. 
In order to do this we must trace the facts to their Jew- 
ish origin. 

I. Let us first examine what were the Ten Command- 
outward uicnts in their outward form and appearance 
form. when they were last seen by mortal eyes as the 

ark was placed in Solomon's Temple. 

1. They were written on two tables or blocks of stone 
or rock. The mountains of Sinai are of red and white 
Israelite ar- granite. On two blocks of this granite rock — 
rangements. ^j^^ ^^^^^ lasting and almost the oldest kind of 
rock that is to be found in the world, as if to remind us 
that these Laws were to be the beginning and the end 
of,all things — were the Ten Commaudments, the Ten 
Words, written. They were written, not as we now 
write them, only on one side of each of the two tables, 
but on both sides, so as to give the idea of absolute com- 
pleteness and solidity. Each block of stone was covered 
behind and before with the sacred letters. Again, they 
were not arranged as we now arrange them. In the 



Chap. XVII.] THEIR ARRANGEMENT. 373 

Fourth, for example, the reason for keeping holy the 
seventh day is, in Exodus, because " God rested on the 
seventh day from the work of creation ; " in Deuteron- 
omy it is to remind them that " they were once strangers 
in the land of Egypt." Probably, therefore, these rea- 
sons were not actually written on the stone, but were 
given afterwards, at two different times, by way of ex- 
planation ; so that the first four Commandments, as they 
were written on the tables, were shorter than they are 
now. Here, as everywhere in the Bible, there may be 
many reasons for doing what is right. It is the doing 
of the thing, and not the particular occasion or reason, 
which makes it right. Another slight difference was 
that the Commandments probably were divided into two 
equal portions, so that the Fifth Commandment, instead 
of being, as it is with us, at the top of the second table, 
was at the bottom of the first. The duty of honoring 
our parents is so like the duty of honoring God, that it 
was put amongst the same class of duties. The duty to 
both, as in the Roman word " pietas," was comprised 
under the same category, and so it is here understood by 
Josephus, Philo, and apparently by St. Paul.^ 

These differences between the original and the present 
arrangement should be noted, because it is interesting 
to have before us as nearly as we can the exact likeness 
of those old Commandments, and because it is useful to 
remember how even these most sacred and ancient words 
have undergone some change in their outward form since 
they were first given, and yet still are equally true and* 
equally venerable. Religion does not consist in counting 
the syllables of the Bible, but in doing what it tells us. 

2. When the Christian Church sprang out of the Jew- 
ish Church, it did not part with those venerable relics 

1 Ewald's History of the People of Israel, vol. i. pp. 581-592, English trans- 
lation. 



374 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XVH. 

of the earlier time, but they were still used to teach 
Christian ar- Christian children their duty, as Jewish children 
rangements. ]^^j ^ieeii taught before. But there were dif- 
1 ferent arrangements introduced in different parts of the 
world. The Talmudic and the modern Jewish tradition, 
taking the Ten Commandments strictly as Ten Words or 
Sentences (Decalogue), makes the First to be the open- 
ing announcement : " I am the Lord thy God, which 
brought thee out of the land of Egypt," and the Second is 
made up of what in our arrangement would be the First 
and Second combined. The Samaritan division, pre- 
served in the roll on Mount Gerizim, puts the First and 
Second together, as the First, and then adds ^ at the end 
an Eleventh, according to our arrangement, not found in 
the Hebrew Pentateuch, which will be noticed as we 
proceed. 

When the Christians adopted the Commandments 
there were two main differences of arrangement. There 
was the division of Augustine and Bede. This follows 
the Jewish and Samaritan arrangement of combining in 
one the First and Second Commandments of our arrange- 
ment. But inasmuch as it has no Eleventh Command- 
ment, like the Samaritan, nor any " First Word," like 
the Jewish, it makes out the number ten by dividing the 
last Commandment into two, following here the arrange- 
ment of the clauses in the Hebrew of Deuteronomy, and 
in the LXX. both of Deuteronomy and Exodus, so as to 
make the Ninth Commandment — " Thou shalt not covet 
thy neighbor's wife," and the Tenth, " Thou shalt not 
covet thy neighbor's house," etc. This is followed by 
the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church. 
The division followed by Origen and Jerome is the same 
as that followed in England and Scotland. It is com- 
mon to all the Eastern Churches, and all the Reformed 

1 See Professor Plumptre, in Dictionary of the Bible, vol. iii. pp. 1465, 1466. 



Chap. XVIL] THEIR IMPORTANCE. 375 

Protestant Churches. Here, again, the various arrange- 
ments give us a useful lesson, as showing us how the dif- 
ferent parts of our doctrine and duty may not be quite 
put together in the same way, and yet be still the same. 
And also it may remind us how the very same arrange- 
ments, even in outward things, may be made by persons 
of the most opposite way of thinking; it is a warning 
not to judge any one by the mere outward sign or badge 
that they wear. No one could be more unlike to the 
Roman Catholic Church than the Reformer Luther, and 
yet the same peculiar arrangement of the Ten Com- 
mandments was used by him and by them. No one 
could be more unlike to the Eastern Church than John 
Knox, or Calvin, or Cranmer, and yet their arrangement 
of the Ten Commandments is the same. 

II. What are we to learn from the place which the 
Ten Commandments occupied in the old dispensation ? 

We learn what is the true foundation of all religion. 
The Ten Commandments are simple rules ; most of them 
can be understood by a child. But still they 

. Importance 

are the very heart and essence of the old Jewish of the com- 

rrii Ti ft mandments. 

religion. They occupy a very small part of the 
Books of Moses. The Ten Commandments, and not the 
precepts about sacrifices and passovers and boundaries 
and priests, are the words which are said to have been de- 
livered in thunder and lightning at Mount Sinai. These, 
and not any ceremonial ordinances, were laid up in the 
Most Holy Place, as the most precious heritage of the 
nation. " There was nothing in the ark save the two 
tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb." 

Do your duty. This is what they tell us. Do your 
duty to God and your duty to man. Whatever we may 
believe or feel or think, the main thing is that we are 
to do what is right, not to do what is wrong. There- 
fore it is that in the Church of England and in the Re- 



376 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XVII. 

formed Churclies of tlie Continent they are still read in 
the most sacred parts of the service, as if to show us that, 
go as far as we can in Christian light and knowledge, 
make as much as we will of Christian doctrine or of 
Christian worship, still we must never lose hold of the 
ancient everlasting lines of duty. 

III. But it may be said. Were not those Ten Com- 
mandments given to the Jews of old ? Do they not re- 
fer to the land of Egypt and the land of Pales- 
command- tluc ? Wc lovc and servc God, and love and 
serve our brethren, not because it is written in 
the Ten Commandments, but because it is written on the 
tables of our hearts by the Divine Spirit on our spirits 
and consciences. But herein lies the very meaning of 
their having become a Christian Institution. 

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus Christ took two 
or three of these Commandments, and explained them 
Himself to the people. He took the Sixth Command- 
ment, and showed that for us it is not enough to re- 
member, " Thou shalt not kill," but that the Command- 
ment went much deeper, and forbade all angry thoughts 
and words. This was intended to apply to all the other 
Commandments. It is not in their letter, but in their 
spirit that they concern us ; and this, no doubt, is what 
is meant by the prayer which in the Church of England 
follows after each of them, and at the end of all of them, 
" Incline our hearts to keep this Commandment," " Write 
all these Commandments in our hearts^ we beseech 
Thee." 

1. Let us take them one by one in this way. The 

First Commandment is no longer ours in the letter, for it 

begins by saying, " I am the Lord thy God, who 

The First o J J o^ J ' 

Command- brought thcc 'out of the land of Esypt." He did 

ment. ^ &jr 

not bring us up out of the land of Egypt, and 
so completely has this ceased to apply to us that in the 



Chap. XVII.] THEIR CONTENTS. 377 

Commandments as publicly read, the Church of England 
has boldly struck out these words altogether from the 
First Commandment. But the spirit of the Command- 
ment still remains ; for we all need to be reminded that 
there is but one Supreme Mind, whose praise and blame 
are, above all, worth having, seeking, or deserving. 

2. The Second Commandment is no longer ours in the 
letter, for the sculptures and paintings which we see at 
every turn are what the Second Commandment 
in its letter forbade, and what the Jews, there- command- 

p T T-, . ment. 

tore, never made. iLvery statue, every picture, 
not only in every church, but in every street or room, is 
a breach of the letter of the Second Commandment. No 
Jew would have ventured under the Mosaic dispensation 
to have them. When Solomon made the golden lions and 
oxen in the Temple, it was regarded by his countrymen 
as unlawful. The Mahometan world still observes the 
Second Commandment literally. The ungainly figures of 
the lions in the court of the Alhambra, contrasted with 
the exquisite carving of arabesques and texts on the walls, 
is an exception that amply proves the rule. The Christian 
world has entirely set it aside. But in spirit it is still 
important. It teaches us that we must not make God 
after our likeness, or after any likeness short of absolute 
moral perfection. Any fancies, any doctrines, any prac- 
tices which lead us to think that God is capricious or un- 
just or untruthful, or that He cares for any outward thing 
compared with holiness, mercy, and goodness — that is 
the breach of the Second Commandment in spirit. It 
was said truly of an attempt to introduce ceremonial 
forms of the Christian religion, " It is so many ways of 
breaking the Second Commandment." Every attempt to 
purify and exalt our ideas of God is the keeping of the 
Second Commandment in spirit, even although we live 
amidst pictures and statues and sculptures of things in 
heaven and things in earth and things under the earth. 



878 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XVII. 

3. The Third Commandment. Here the original mean- 
ing of the Commandment is more elevated and more 

spiritual than that which is commonly given to 

The Third . . , J o 

Command- it. Many see in it only a prohibition of profane 
swearing or false swearing. It means this — but 
it means much more. It means that we are not to appeal 
to God's name for any unworthy purpose. It is a protest 
against all those sins which have claimed the sanction of 
God or of religion. The words are literally, " Thou shalt 
not bring the Holy Name to anything that is vain," 
that is, to anything that is unholy, hollow, empty. The 
plea and pretext of God's name will not avail as an ex- 
cuse for cruelty or hypocrisy or untruthfulness or un- 
dutifulness. The Eternal will not hold him guiltless who 
taketh His name in vain — that is, who brings it to an 
unjust or unrighteous cause. All the wicked persecu- 
tions carried on, all the wicked wars waged, all the pious 
frauds perpetrated in the name of the Holy God, are 
breaches of the Third Commandment, both in its letter 
and in its spirit. 

4. The Fourth Commandment. Here, as in the Second 
Commandment, there is a wide divergence between the 

letter and the spirit. In its letter it is obeyed 

The Fourth ^ . . . , 

Command- by HO Christian society whatever, except the 
Abyssinian Church in Africa, and the small sect 
of the Seventh-Day Baptists in England. They still 
keep a day of rest on the Saturday, the seventh day of 
the week. But in every other country the seventh day 
is observed only by the Jews, and not by the Christians. 
And again only by the Jews, and not by Christians any- 
where, are the Mosaic laws kept which forbade the light- 
ing of a single fire, which forbade the walking beyond 
a single mile, which forbade the employment of a single 
animal, which visited as a capital offence the slightest 
employment on the seventh day. And again, the reasons 



Chap. XVIL] THEIR CONTENTS. 379 

given in the two versions of the Fourth Commandment 
are passed away. We cannot be called, as in Deuter- 
onomy, to remember that we were strangers in the land 
of Egypt, for many of us were never in Egj^pt at all. 
We cannot be called, as in Exodus, to remember that 
the earth was made in six days, for we most of us know 
that it took, not six days, but millions of ages, to bring 
the earth from its void and formless state to its present 
condition. The letter of the Fourth Commandment has 
long ceased. The very name of *' the Lord's Day " and 
of " the first day of the week " is a protest against it. 
The very name of Sabbath is condemned by St. Paul.^ 
The Catechism of the Church of England speaks of the 
duty of serving God all the days of our life, and not of 
serving Him on one day alone. But the principle which 
lay at the bottom of the Fourth Commandment has not 
passed away. Just as the prohibition of statues in the 
Second Commandment is now best carried out by the 
avoidance of superstitious, unworthy, degrading ideas of 
the nature of God, so the principle of the observance 
of the Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment is aimed 
against worldl}^, hard, exacting ideas of the work of man. 
The principle of the Fourth Commandment enjoins the 
sacred duty of rest — for there is an element of rest in 
the Divine Nature itself. It enjoins also the sacred duty 
of kindness to our servants and to the inferior animals ; 
" for remember that thou wast a servant in the land of 
Egypt." How this rest is to be carried out, within what 
limits it is to be confined, what amount of innocent rec- 
reation is to be allowed, how far the Continental nations 
have erred on the one side or the Scottish nation on the 
other side, in their mode of observance, whether the ob- 
servance of the English Sunday is exactly what it ought 
to be, or in what respects it might be improved — these 

1 Col. ii. 16. 



380 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XVIl. 

are questions which this is not the place to discuss. It is 
enough to say that amidst all the variations in the mode 
of observing the Sunday, it is still possible, and it is still 
our duty, to bear in mind the principle of the ancient 
Law. " I was in the Sjnrit on the Lord's Day : " that is 
what we should all strive to attain — to be raised at least 
for one day in the week above the grinding toil of our 
daily work — above the debasing influence of frivolous 
amusements — above the jangling of business and con- 
troversy — raised into the high and holy atmosphere 
breathed by pure and peaceful lives, bright and beauti- 
ful thoughts, elevating and invigorating worship. Al- 
though the day has been changed from the seventh day to 
the first day everywhere — nay, even had it been further 
changed as Calvin intended, from Sunday to Thursday 
— even had it yet been further changed, as Tyndale, the 
foremost of the English Reformers, proposed, from the 
seventh day to the tenth day — yet still there would sur- 
vive the solemn obligation founded, not on the Law of 
Moses, but on the Law of God in Nature, the obligation 
of rest and of worship as long as human nature remains 
what it is, as long as the things which are temporal are 
seen, and the things which are eternal are unseen.^ 

5. The Fifth Commandment. Here, again, the letter 
has ceased to have any meaning for us. " That thy days 
may be long in the land which the Lord thy God 
Command- givctli thec." We have no claim on the inher- 
itance of the land of Canaan. No amount of 
filial reverence will secure for us the possession of the 
goodly heights of Lebanon, or the forests of Gilead, or the 
rushing waters of Jordan. But the ordinance of affection 
and honor to parents has not diminished, but grown, with 
the years which have passed since the command was first 
issued. The love of son to mother, the honor of chil- 

1 See Prof. Tyndall's admirable Address on the Sabbath at Glasgow. 



Chap. XVII.] THEIR CONTENTS. 381 

dren to parents, is far stronger now than in the days of 
Moses. 

It is often discussed in these days whether this or that 
principle of religion is natural or supernatural. How 
often is this distinction entirely without meaning ! The 
Fifth Commandment — sacred to the dearest, deepest, 
purest, noblest aspirations of the heart — is natural be- 
cause it is supernatural, is supernatural because it is nat- 
ural. It is truly regarded as the symbol, as the sanction, 
of the whole framework of civil and religious society. 
Our obedience to law, our love of country, is not a bond 
of mere expediency or accident. It is not a worldl}^, un- 
spiritual ordinance, to be rejected because it crosses some 
religious fancies or interferes with some theological alle- 
gory. It is binding on the Christian conscience, because 
it is part of the natural religion of the human race and 
of the best instincts of Christendom. 

6. The Sixth Commandment. The crime of murder is 
what it chiefly condemns, and no sentimental feelings of 
modern times have ever been able to bring the 
murderer down from that bad preeminence as command- 
the worst and most appalling of human offend- 
ers. It is the consummation of selfishness. It is the dis- 
regard of the most precious of God's earthly gifts — the 
gift of life. But the scope of the Commandment extends 
much further. In the Christian sense he is a breaker of 
the Sixth Commandment who promotes quarrels and jeal- 
ousies in families, who indulges in fierce, contemptuous 
words, who fans the passions of class against class, of 
church against church, of nation against nation. In the 
horrors of war it is not the innocent soldier killing his 
adversary in battle, but the partisans on whatever side, 
the ambitious in whatever nation, the reckless journalists 
and declaimers of whatever opinions, by which angry pas- 
sions are fostered, that are the true responsible authors 



382 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XVII. 

of the horrors which follow in the train of armies and in 
the fields of carnage. In the yiolence of civil and intes- 
tine discord, it is not only human life that is at stake, 
but that which makes human life precious. " As well 
kill a good man as a good book," was the saying of Mil- 
ton, and so we may add, in thinking of those who care 
neither to preserve nor to improve the inheritance which 
God has given us, " As well kill a good man as a good 
institution." 

7. The Seventh Commandment. Of this it is enough 
to say that here also we know well in our consciences that 

it is not only the shameless villain who invades 
Command- the sauctity of another's home and happiness 

that falls under the condemnation of that dread- 
ftil word which the Seventh Commandment uses. It is 
the reader and writer of filthy books ; it is the young man 
or the young woman who allows his or her purity and dig- 
nity to be soiled and stained by loose talk and loose com- 
pany. If the sacredness of the marriage bond be the 
glory of our English homes, no eccentricities of genius, 
no exceptional misfortunes — however much we may ex- 
cuse or pit}^ those who have gone astray — can justify us 
in making light of that which, disregarded in one case, is 
endangered in all, which, if lost in a few cases, is the 
ruin of hundreds. It is not the loss of Christianity, but 
of civilization ; not the advance to freedom, but the re- 
lapse into barbarism. 

8. The Eighth Commandment. " Thou shalt not 
steal." That lowest, meanest crime of the thief and the 

robber is not all that the Eighth Commandment 
Command- condcmus. It is the taking of money which is 

not our due, and which we are lorbidden to re- 
ceive ; it is the squandering of money which is not our 
own, on the race-course or at the gambling table ; it is 
the taking advantage of a flaw or an accident in a will 



Chap. XVII.] THEIR CONTENTS. 383 

which gives us property which was not intended for us, 
and to which others have a better claim than we. He 
is the true observer of the Eighth Commandment not 
only who keeps his hands from picking and stealing, but 
he who renders just restitution, he who, like the great In- 
dian soldier, Outram, the Bayard of modern times, would 
not claim any advantage from a war which he had victo- 
riously conducted, because he thought the war itself was 
wrong ; he who is scrupulously honest, even to the last 
farthing of his accounts, with master or servant, with em- 
ployer or employed ; he who respects the rights of others, 
not only of the rich against the poor, not only of the poor 
against the rich, but of all classes against each other. 
These, and these only, are the Christian keepers of the 
Eighth Commandment. 

9. The Ninth Commandment. " Thou shalt not bear 
false witness." False witness, deliberate perjury, is the 
crown and consummation of the liar's progress. 
But what a world of iniquity is covered by that command- 
one word, Lie. Careless, damaging statements, 
thrown hither and thither in conversation; reckless exag- 
geration and romancing, only to make stories more pun- 
gent ; hasty records of character, left to be published after 
we are dead ; heedless disregard of the supreme duty and 
value of truth in all things, — these are what we should 
bear in mind when we are told that we are not to bear 
false witness against our neighbor. A lady who had been 
in the habit of spreading slanderous reports once con- 
fessed her fault to St. Philip Neri, and asked how she 
should cure it. He said, *' Go to the nearest market- 
place, buy a chicken just killed, pluck its feathers all the 
way as you return, and come back to me." She was 
much surprised, and when she saw her adviser again, he 
said, " Now go back, and bring me back all the feathers 
you have scattered." " But that is impossible," she said ; 



384 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XVII. 

" I cast away the feathers carelessly ; the wind carried 
them away. How can I recover them ? " " That," he 
said, " is exactly like your words of slander. They have 
been carried about in every direction ; you cannot recall 
them. Go, and slander no more." 

10. The Tenth Commandment. The form of the Com- 
mandment speaks only of the possessions of a rude and 
pastoral people, — the wife of a neighboring 
Command- chlcf, the male and female slaves, the Syrian 
ox, the Egyptian ass. But the principle strikes 
at the very highest heights of civilization and at the ver}^ 
innermost secrets of the heart. Greed, selfishness, ambi- 
tion, egotism, self-importance, money-getting, rash specu- 
lation, desire of the poor to pull down the rich, desire of 
the rich to exact more than their due from the poor, eager- 
ness to destroy the most useful and sacred institutions in 
order to gratify a social revenge, or to gain a lost place, 
or to make a figure in the world, — these are amongst the 
wide-reaching evils which are included in that ancient 
but most expressive word " covetousness." " I had not 
known sin," says the Apostle Paul, " but for the law 
which says, Thou sTialt not covet.'''' So we may all say. 
No one can know the exceeding sinfulness of sin who 
does not know the guilt of selfishness ; no one can know 
the exceeding beauty of holiness who has not seen or 
felt the glory of unselfishness. 

IV. These are the Ten Commandments — the sum- 
mary of the morality of Judaism, the basis of the moral- 
ity of Christian Churches. We have heard it 
great Com- Said of such and such an one with open, genuine 
countenance, that he looked as if he had the 
Ten Commandments written on his face. It was re- 
marked by an honest, pious Roman Catholic of the last 
generation, on whom a devout but feeble enthusiast was 
pressing the use of this and that small practice of devo- 



Chap. XVII. ] THE TWO GREAT COMMANDMENTS. 385 

tion, " My devotions are much better than those. They 
are the devotions of the Ten Commandments of God." 

In the Reformed American Church and in the Re- 
formed Churches of France, and intended by the last 
Reformers of the English Liturgy in 1689, though they 
failed to carry the point, after the Ten Commandments 
are read in church comes this memorable addition, which 
we ought all to supply in memory, even although it is 
not publicly used : " Hear also what our Lord Jesus 
Christ saith." This is what is taken as the ground of the 
explanation of the Commandments in all Christian Cat- 
echisms of our duty to God. Everything in what we call 
the first table is an enlargement of that one simple com- 
mand, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." Every- 
thing in the second table of our duty to our neighbor is 
an enlargement of the command, " Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." The two together are the whole 
of religion. Each of itself calls our attention to what is 
the first and chief duty of each of the two tables. God, 
the Supreme Goodness, and the Supreme Truth, is to be 
served with no half service; it must be a service that 
goes through our whole lives. We must place Him above 
everything else. He is all in all to us. Truth, justice, pu- 
rity are in Him made the supreme object of our devotion 
and affection. " Let no man," says Lord Bacon, "out of 
weak conceit of authority or ill-applied moderation, think 
or imagine that a man can search too far or be too well 
supplied in the Book of God's Word or the Book of God's 
Works." Man is to be served also with a love like that 
which we give to ourselves. Selfishness is here made the 
root of all evil; unselfishness the root of all goodness. 
Toleration of every difference of race or creed is summed 
up in the expression "thy neighbor." 

It was a saying of Abraham Lincoln, " When any 
church will inscribe over its altar as its sole qualification 

26 



386 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XVIT. 

for membership the Saviour's condensed statement of the 
substance of both Law and Gospel in those two great 
Commandments, that church will I join with all my 
heart and with all my soul." There may be an exag- 
geration in the expression, but the thing intended is 
true. If any church existed which in reality and in 
spirit put forth those two Commandments as the sum 
and substance of its belief, as that to which all else 
tended, and for the sake of which all was done, it would 
indeed take the first place amongst the churches of the 
world, because it would be the Church that most fully 
had expressed the mind and intention of the Founder of 
Christendom.^ 

V. There was an addition which the English divines 
of the time of William III. wished to make to the recital 
The Eight ^^ ^^^ Ten Commandmeuts in church. It was 
Beatitudes. "br-^gJed by the obstinate prejudice of the inferior 
clergy. But its intention was singularly fine. It was 
that, on the three great festivals, instead of the Ten 
Commandments of Mount Sinai should be read the Eight 
Beatitudes of the Mountain of Galilee, in order to re- 
mind us that beyond and above the Law of Duty, there 
is the happiness of that inward spirit which is at once 
the spring and the result of all duty — the happiness, 
the blessedness which belongs to the humble, the sincere, 
the unselfish, the eager aspirant after goodness, the gen- 
erous, the pure, the courageous. That happiness is the 
highest end and aim of all religion. 

VI. There is one addition yet to be made, which has 
never been suggested by authority. 

We sometimes hear in conversation of an Eleventh 
TheEiev- Commandment invented by the world, in cyn- 
mandment ical coutcmpt of the old commandmeuts, or in 

1 The subject is treated at length in "The Two Great Commandments," in 
Addresses at St. Andrews, pp. 155-187. 



Chap. XVIL] THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 387 

pursuit of some selfish or wicked end. Of such an 
Eleventh Commandment, whether in jest or earnest, we 
need not here speak. It is enough to be reminded of it, 
and pass it by. But there is also what may be called 
the Eleventh Commandment of churches and sects. In 
the oldest and most venerable of all ecclesiastical divis- 
ions — the ancient Samaritan community, who have for 
centuries, without increase or diminution, gathered round 
Mount Gerizim as the only place where men ought to 
worship — there is, as noticed above, to be read upon the 
aged parchment-scroll of the Pentateuch this command- 
ment, added to the other Ten, " Thou shalt build an altar 
on Mount Gerizim, and there only shalt thou worship." ^ 
Faithfully have they followed that command ; excom- 
municating, and excommunicated by, all other religious 
societies, they cling to that Eleventh Commandment as 
equal, if not superior, to all the rest. This is ^f the 
the true likeness of what all churches and sects, Samaritans: 
unless purified by a higher spirit, are tempted to add. 
" Thou shalt do something for this particular community, 
which none else may share. Thou shalt do this over and 
above, and more than thy plain duties to God and man. 
Thou shalt build thine altar on Mount Gerizim, for here 
alone our fathers have said that God is to be worshipped. 
Thou shalt maintain the exclusive sacredness of this or 
that place, this or that word, this or that doctrine, this 
or that party, this or that institution, this or that mode 
of doing good. Thou shalt worship God thus and thus 
only." This is the Eleventh Commandment ac- 

*^ .of sects ; 

cording to sects and parties and partisans. I^or 

1 The Eleventh (or in the Samaritan division, the Tenth) Commandment of 
the Samaritans is here somewhat abridged. It consists of Deut. xxvii. 2-7, xi. 
30, interpolated in Exod. xx., with the alteration of Ebal into Gerizim. I ven- 
ture to quote the substance of two passages from Lectures on the Church of 
Scotland, pp. 3, 4, 6-8. There is a striking story of Archbishop Usher in con- 
nection with it (see Ibid. pp. 4-6). 



388 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XYII. 

this vre are often told to contend more than for all the 
other Ten together. For an Eleventh Commandment like 
to this, half the energies of Christendom have been spent, 
and spent in vain. For some command like this men 
have fought and struggled and shed their own blood and 
the blood of others, as though it were a command en- 
graven on the tables of the everlasting law ; and yet, 
again and again and again, it has been found in after 
ages that such a command was an addition as venerable, 
perhaps, and as full of interest, but as superfluous, as 
misleading, as disproportionate, as that Eleventh Samar- 
itan commandment, — "Thou shalt build an altar on 
Mount Gerizim, and there only shalt thou worship." 

But there is a divine Eleventh Commandment, — "A 
oftheGos- ^®^ commandment I give unto you, that ye 
^®^" love one another ; As I have loved you, that ye 

also should love one another." 

It is contained in the parting discourse of St. John's 
Gospel, and it is introduced there as a surprise to the 
Apostles. " What ? Are not the Ten Commandments 
enough ? Must we always be pressing forward to some- 
thing new ? What is this that He saith, ' A new com- 
mandment ? ' We cannot tell what He saith." Never- 
theless it corresponds to a genuine want of the human 
heart. 

Beyond the Ten Commandments there is yet a craving 
for something even beyond duty, even beyond reverence. 
There is a need which can only be satisfied by a new, by 
an Eleventh Commandment, which shall be at once old 
and new — which shall open a new field of thought and 
exertion for each generation of men ; which shall give a 
fresh, undying impulse to its older sisters — the youngest 
child (so to speak) of the patriarchal family. The true 
new commandment which Jesus Christ gave was, in its 
very form and fashion, peculiarly characteristic of the 
Christian Religion. 



1 



Chap. XYIL] THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 389 

The novelty of the commandment lay in two points. 
First, it was new, because of the paramomit, predomi- 
nant place which it gave to the force of the human af- 
fections, the enthusiasm for the good of others, which 
was — instead of ceremonial, or mere obedience, or cor- 
rectness of belief — henceforth to become the appointed 
channel of religious fervor. And, secondly, it was new, 
because it was founded on the appearance of a new char- 
acter, a new manifestation of the character of Man, a 
new manifestation of the character of God. Even if 
the Four Gospels had been lost, we should see, from the 
urgency with which the Apostles press this new grace of 
Love or Charity upon us, that some diviner vision of ex- 
cellence had crossed their minds. The very word which 
they used to express it was new, for the thing was new, 
the example was new, and the consequences therefore 
were new also. 

It may be said that the solid blocks or tables on which 
the Ten Commandments were written were of the gran- 
ite rock of Sinai, as if to teach us that all the great laws 
of duty to God and duty to man were like that oldest 
primeval foundation of the world — more solid, more en- 
during than all the other strata ; cutting across all the 
secondary and artificial distinctions of mankind ; heaving 
itself up, now here, now there ; throwing up here the 
fantastic crag, the towering peak, there the long range 
which unites or divides the races of mankind. That is 
the universal, everlasting character of Duty. But as 
that granite rock itself has been fused and wrought to- 
gether by a central fire, without which it could not have 
existed at all, so also the Christian law of Duty, in order 
to perform fully its work in the world, must have been 
warmed at the heart and fed at the source by a central 
fire of its own — and that central fire is Love — the gra- 
cious, kindly, generous, admiring, tender movements of 



390 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XVII. 

the human affections ; and that central fire itself is kept 
alive by the consciousness that there has been in the 
world a Love beyond all human love, a devouring fire 
of Divine enthusiasm on behalf of our race, which is 
the Love of Christ. It is not contrary to the Ten Com- 
mandments. It is not outside of them, it is within 
them ; it is at their core ; it is wrapped up in them, as 
the particles of the central heat of the globe were en- 
cased within the granite tables in the Ark of the Tem- 
ple. " What was it that made him undertake the sup- 
port of the Abolition of the Slave-trade?" was asked of 
an eminent statesman respecting the conduct of another. 
" It was his love of the human race." 

This Avas what the Apostle Paul meant by saying, 
*' Love is the fulfilling of the Law." This is what St. 
Peter meant by saying, " Above all things, have fer- 
vent," enthusiastic ''Love." This is what St. John 
meant when, in his extreme old age, he was carried into 
the market-place of Ephesus, and, according to the an- 
cient tradition, repeated over and over again to his dis- 
ciples the words which he had heard from his Master, 
" Little children, love one another." They were vexed 
by hearing this commandment, this Eleventh Command- 
ment, repeated so often. They asked for something 
more precise, more definite, more dogmatic; but the 
aged Apostle, we are told, had but one answer: "This 
is the sum and substance of the Gospel ; if you do this, 
I have nothing else to teach you." He did not mean 
that ceremonies, doctrines, ordinances were of no im- 
portance ; but that they were altogether of secondary 
importance. He meant that they were on the outside 
of religion, whereas this commandment belonged to its 
innermost substance ; that, if this commandment were 
carried out, all that was good in all the rest would fol- 
low ; that, if this commandment were neglected, all that 



Chap. XVII.] THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. 391 

was good in all the rest would fade away, and all that 
was evil and one-sided and exaggerated would prevail 
and pervert even the good. He meant and his Master 
meant that, as the ages rolled on, other truths may be 
folded up and laid aside ; but that this would always 
need to be enforced and developed. 

Love one another in spite of differences, in spite of 
faults, in spite of the excesses of one or the defects of 
another. Love one another, and make the best of one 
another, as He loved us, who, for the sake of saving what 
was good in the human soul, forgot, forgave, put out of 
sight what was bad — who saw and loved what was good 
even in the publican Zaccheus, even in the penitent Mag- 
dalen, even in the expiring malefactor, even in the heret- 
ical Samaritan, even in the Pharisee Nicodemus, even in 
the heathen soldier, even in the outcast Canaanite. Make 
the most of what there is good in institutions, in opin- 
ions, in communities, in individuals. It is very easy to 
do the reverse, to make the worst of what there is of 
evil, absurd, and erroneous. By so doing we shall have 
no difficulty in making estrangements more wide, and 
hatreds and strifes more abundant, and errors more ex- 
treme. It is very easy to fix our attention only on the 
weak points of those around us, to magnify them, to irri- 
tate them, to aggravate them ; and by so doing we can 
make the burden of life unendurable, and can destroy our 
own and others' happiness and usefulness wherever we go. 
But this is not the new love wherewith we are to love 
one another. That love is universal, because in its spirit 
we overcome evil simply by doing good. We drive out 
error simply by telling the truth. We strive to look on 
both sides of the shield of truth. We strive to speak the 
truth in love, that is, without exaggeration or misrepre- 
sentation ; concealing nothing, compromising nothing, 
but with the effort to understand each other, to discover 



392 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. [Chap. XVII. 

the truth which lies at the bottom of the error ; with the 
determination cordially to love whatever is lovable even 
in those in whom we cordially detest whatever is detest- 
able. And, in proportion as we endeavor to do this, 
there may be a hope that men will see that there are, 
after all, some true disciples of Christ left in the world, 
** because they have love one to another." 



ADDENDA. 



To p. 57. 

Deerhurst Church was arranged in this nianner in 1603, and 
it continued with its table east and west till 1 846. It is now 
arranged north and south, but otherwise is in the same position. 

To p. 85. 

" The requirement of the Sacrament has, fortunately, never 
been to any great extent one of the requirements of the social 
code, and a rite which of all Christian institutes is the most ad- 
mirable in its touching solemnity has for the most part been left 
to sincere and earnest believers. Something of the fervor, 
something of the deep sincerity of the early Christians, may 
even now be seen around the sacred table, and prayers instinct 
with the deepest and most solemn emotion may be employed 
without appearing almost blasphemous by their contrast with 
the tone and the demeanor of the worshippers." — (From some 
admirable remarks of Mr. Lecky on the Test Act. History of 
the Eighteenth Century^ vol. i. p. 255.) 

To p. 174. 

Extract from Personal Recollections of Sir Gilbert Scott, p. 
28. — " In the earliest period to which his memory extended, 
the clergy habitually wore their cassock, gown, and shovel hat, 
and when this custom went out a sort of interregnum ensued, 
during which all distinction of dress was abandoned, and clerics 
followed lay fashions. This is the period which Jane Austen's 
novels illustrate. Her clergymen are singularly free from any 
of the ecclesiastical character. Later on the clergy adopted the 
suit of black, and the white necktie, which had all along been 



394 ADDENDA. 

the dress of professional men, lawyers, doctors, architects, and 
even surveyors: of men in short whose business was to advise." 

To p. 319. 

In the version of the Lord's Prayer in the best authorities of 
Luke xi. 2, 3, 4, " Which art in heaven," " Thy will be done in 
earth as it is in heaven," and " Deliver us from the evil," are 
omitted. 



I 

1 



INDEX. 



Absolution, use of, in early times, 

143, 156. 
Adiaphorism, 185. 
Altar, 57, 200, 224. 
Ambones, importance of, 61. 
Art, early Christian, 279. 
Athanaric, funeral of, 336. 
Athanasius, 15, 326, 330. 
Augustine, 19. 

Baptism, original, 1, 3, 

— Immersion, 21. 

— Infants', 16, 23. 

— Opinion of salvation by, 1 6. 
Basilica, 197. 

Binding and loosing, proper mean- 
ing of, 143, 147. 

— its form, 199. 

Bishops in relation to presbyters, 

197. 
Blood of Christ, meaning of, 125, 

138. 
Body of Christ, meaning of in the 

Gospels, 116, 121. 
in the Epistles, 122, 125, 

Canons of 1604, 187. 
Catacombs, 272. 

— their Jewish character, 274. 

— pictures, 275. 

— epitaphs, 289. 

Chalcedon, Council of, 356, 358-362. 

— reverses the decree of Ephesus, 
367. 

Chancellor, 164. 
Clergy, 207. 
Clergy, origin of, 217. 
Collect, origin of, 48. 



Confession, use of, in early times, 

156. 
Confirmation, 19. 
Constantinople, Creed of, 365. 

— contents, origin of, 367-371. 
Consubstantiation, 106. 
Cope, 165. 

Creed, Apostles', 295. 

— Nicene, 295, 326. 
Crosier, 224. 

Cup, withholding of, 103. 
Cyril of Alexandria, 357, 363. 

Deacons, origin of, 210. 
Doxology in Lord's Prayer, 318. 
Dress, ecclesiastical, 185. 

Elements, 37. 
Eleventh Commandment, 386. 
Elizabeth Lutheranism, 109. 
Ephesus, Council of, 355, 357, 358. 

— decree of, 363, 364. 
Episcopacy, origin of, 214. 
Eucharist, antiquity of, 33. 

— permanence, 41. 
Euphemia, Saint, 356. 
Extempore prayer, 64. 

Father, meaning of, 297. 
Fish, in the Sacrament, 55. 

GooDENOUGH, Commodore, 43. 
Gorham controversy, 11. 
Gregory Nazianzen, 327. 

Heine, poem on the Trinity, 312. 
Holy Ghost, meaning of, 305. 
Homily, meaning of, 61. 
Hypostasis, 309. 



396 



INDEX. 



Jerome, 331. 

Jewish High Priest, bis dress, 177. 

Jube, origin of, 60. 

Kiss of peace, importance of, 62. 

Lamartine, his speech, 181. 
Litany, its origin, 259. 

— its English translation, 262. 
Liturgy, ancient form of, 63. 
Liturgy of the First Prayer Book of 

Edward VL, 83. 
Lord's Prayer, 324. 

— language of, 325. 

its importance, 68, 69, 315. 

brevity, conclusion of, 320. 

Magic, prevalence of, 93, 94. 
Mass, meaning of, 4-9. 
Maximus, 331. 

Newman, Cardinal, description of 
the Council of Ephesus, 357. 

Nicsea, Creed of, guarded by Ephe- 
sian decree, 363. 

altered by Chalcedonian de- 
cree, 364, 367. 

Offering of bread and wine, 68. 
Ordination, words used in, 155. 

— various forms of, 212. 
Ornaments' Rubric, 185, 189. 

Parabolical language, misuse of, 
91. 

Passover, 36. 

Pearson, Bishop, 43. 

Pontifex Maximus, 229. 

Pope, the, compared with the Em- 
peror and the Sultan, 220, 221. 

— Italian prince, 232. 

— dress of, 222. 
Pope, how created, 238. 

— his oracular power, 240. 

— nwxed character, 246. 



Pope, name of, 235. 

— postures of, 223, 224, 250, 257. 

— service of, 226. 
Popes, lay, 236-240. 
Position of ministers, 58. 

Real presence, 86. 

— moral and spiritual, 87, 90, 96. 
Red flag, 181. 

Redemption, doctrine of, 270. 
Regeneration, 77. 

Sacrifice, offering of fruits, 68. 

— Pagan and Jewish, 73. 
Scriptures, reading of, 60. 
Shepherd, the Good, 281. 
Son, meaning of, 299. 
Spinoza, 304. 

Spirit, meaning of, 305. 
Sponsors, 30. 
Standing posture, 58. 
Substitution of Christian ideas, 74, 
84. 

Table or altar, earliest form, 57. 
Temple, 196. 

Ten Commandments, 372. 
Theodoret, conduct at Council of 

Chalcedon, 359, 361. 
Theodosius, 334. 

— moderation of, 362. 
Transubstantiation, 99, 100. 

Union of Lutherans andZwinglians, 
112. 

Vestments (ecclesiastical), 163. 

— origin of, 165, 171. 

Vine, the, 286 f 

Westminster Abbey, 290. 
Wilhelm Meister, 304. 
Wine, 54. 

— mixed with water, 54. 



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